What Does John 13:7 Mean?
Jesus answered and said to him, What I am doing you do not see now, but you will know afterward.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.THE KEY
The same English word “know” hides a shift from not grasping the act now to recognizing its meaning after it unfolds.
THE MEANING
What Jesus is doing may not be clear to you in the moment; the meaning can come into view after the action unfolds. Not knowing now does not mean the meaning is absent or beyond you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Not understanding something now does not prove it is pointless or that you will never understand it.
THE ROOT
γνώσῃ
gnōsē
GROWS FROM
γνω-
gnō-
To know, recognize, or come to know through encounter.
“shalt know” in this verse is gnōsē. The future “know” is γινώσκω (ginōskō), a word of knowing and recognition. Its timing matters here: recognition comes after the act, so the present lack of understanding is not the end of the story.
ALSO GROWS
gnōsis: knowing, knowledge
γνῶσις
This related noun makes the connection between the future verb and the arrival of understanding visible.
gnōstos: known, familiar
γνωστός
What is not yet understood can become familiar and recognizable as what follows unfolds.
οἶδας
oidas
GROWS FROM
εἰδ-/ἰδ- (eid-/id-)
Seeing or perceiving; οἶδα (oida) means to know or be aware and is historically related to εἴδω (eidō), “to see.”
“knowest” in this verse is oidas. English uses “know” for both the present lack and the later recognition, but the Greek changes verbs. The first speaks of what is not understood now; the second names knowing that comes afterward.
ALSO GROWS
eidos: form, appearance
εἶδος
This related word preserves the seeing and perceiving family behind οἶδα.
idea: appearance, form
ἰδέα
Like εἶδος, it carries the sense of what comes into view or is perceived.
THE PATTERN
Understanding can arrive after an event, when what was unclear in the moment becomes recognizable.
His disciples did not come to know these things at first, but when Jesus was clothed in weight, then they remembered that these things had been written upon him, and that they had done these things to him.For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and at the end it will breathe and not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it. Because it will surely come, it will not stay behind.THE THREAD
His disciples did not come to know these things at first, but when Jesus was clothed in weight, then they remembered that these things had been written upon him, and that they had done these things to him.“Understood” here translates ἔγνωσαν (egnōsan), from the same Greek root as “shalt know” in John 13:7. John shows that later knowing as a real moment: what is not understood at first becomes recognizable afterward.
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