What Does John 2:22 Mean?
So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them, and they leaned their weight on the writing and on the word Jesus had spoken.
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
When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.THE KEY
What is seen now brings Jesus’ earlier words back into view, and remembrance becomes the ground of trust.
THE MEANING
A word can reach you before its meaning is clear. When the moment brings it back into view, what you see and what was spoken meet, and trust takes shape.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You must understand a true word immediately, or it cannot be trusted.
THE ROOT
ἐμνήσθησαν
emnēsthēsan
GROWS FROM
μνα-/μνη- (mna-/mnē-)
The Greek memory word family: remember, call to mind, bring back to mind.
“Remembered” can sound like a private replay, but this word family also includes reminding: an earlier word is brought forward into the present. Here, what is seen makes the words Jesus spoke newly legible.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmoneuō: remember, call to mind
μνημονεύω
It shares the memory family and shows remembrance as bringing something back into awareness.
hypomimnēskō: remind, bring back to mind
ὑπομιμνῄσκω
It makes explicit the movement in this verse: what was spoken earlier returns to present understanding.
ἐπίστευσαν
episteusan
GROWS FROM
πιστ-
pist-
Trust, reliability, and firmness; to trust is to lean your full weight on what proves trustworthy.
“leaned their weight on the writing” in this verse is episteusan. The verb translated “believed” belongs to the same Greek family as trust and what is trustworthy. The response here is more than accepting a statement: the remembered word now carries weight.
ALSO GROWS
pistis: trust, confidence
πίστις
This is the related noun: the trust that answers when the word becomes clear.
pistos: firm, steady, trustworthy
πιστός
This branch connects trust with the reliability on which a person can lean.
THE PATTERN
An earlier word becomes present and clear when a later moment brings it back into view.
And Joseph remembered the dreams he had dreamed about them, and he said to them, You are spies. You have come to see the nakedness of the land.I remember your judgments from the ages, LORD, and I am comforted.But the One who comes alongside, the Set-Apart Breath, which the Father will send in my nature, that one will teach you all things and will remind you of all that I said to you.THE THREAD
And they remembered his words.Luke uses the same Greek verb translated “remembered.” The repeated word places remembrance at the hinge where what was spoken and what is seen meet.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us