What Does John 19:42 Mean?
So there they laid Jesus, because of the Jews' day of preparation, for the tomb was near at hand.
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
There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.THE KEY
The Greek word for “sepulchre” also carries the sense of a memorial: the place of burial is already a place of remembrance.
THE MEANING
Jesus’ body is laid in a nearby tomb as the preparation day closes the available time. The grave is named with a word from the family of remembering, holding burial and remembrance together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This unsettles the belief that burial makes a person disappear into mere absence: the word for the tomb also carries the sense of remembrance.
THE ROOT
μνημεῖον
mnēmeion
GROWS FROM
μνη
mnē
remembering, memory
The Greek word for a tomb belongs to the language of remembering. The burial place is also named as a memorial, so the verse holds physical absence and remembrance in the same word-family.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: memory, remembrance
μνήμη
This branch makes the tomb’s memorial sense visible within the same Greek family.
mnēmosynon: memorial, something that calls a person or deed to mind
μνημόσυνον
This word-family also names an act preserved in remembrance, linking burial with the continuing memory of a life.
ἔθηκαν
ethēkan
GROWS FROM
τίθημι
tithēmi
put, place, set down
“laid” in this verse is ethēkan. The verb says that Jesus is placed in the tomb, while the same Greek verb can describe laying down one’s life. The word holds a body’s placement and the giving of life within one root.
ALSO GROWS
thesis: a placing, position
θέσις
It carries the root’s sense of setting something in a particular place.
thema: something placed or set; a subject
θέμα
It shows how what is set down can also become what is set before the mind.
THE PATTERN
A life can remain present through what continues to be remembered.
For he does not slip for the ages; the aligned one is in remembrance of the ages.The remembrance of the aligned is for blessing, but the name of the restless rots.Truly, I say to you, wherever this good news is heralded in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman has done, be told for a memorial of her.THE THREAD
Truly, I say to you, wherever this good news is heralded in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman has done, be told for a memorial of her.The Greek word translated “memorial,” μνημόσυνον (mnēmosynon), belongs to the same remembering word-family as μνημεῖον (mnēmeion), “sepulchre.” One verse names a deed preserved in remembrance; the other gives Jesus’ burial place a memory-bearing name.
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