What Does John 20:3 Mean?
So Peter went forth, and the other disciple, and they came to the tomb.
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
Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.THE KEY
The Greek word for “sepulchre” is rooted in memory, so Peter and the other learner are walking toward the place that holds the story of loss.
THE MEANING
You see two disciples move toward the tomb, the place that seems to preserve the final memory of Jesus. The verse leaves the outcome open: they are approaching what they have understood as loss, before seeing what is there.
THE ROOT
μνημεῖον
mnēmeion
GROWS FROM
μνημ-
mnēm-
Memory, remembrance; what is held in mind.
The tomb is named with a word connected to remembrance: it is not only where the dead are laid, but a place that holds their memory. Peter and the other disciple move toward the place where loss is kept in view.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: Memory, remembrance.
μνήμη
It makes visible the memorial sense carried by the word for tomb.
mnēmoneuō: To remember, call to mind.
μνημονεύω
The tomb’s word family links the place they approach with the act of remembering.
μαθητής
mathētēs
GROWS FROM
μανθαν- / μαθ- (manthan- / math-)
To learn, acquire understanding.
“disciple” in this verse is mathētēs. The Greek word names a learner. The two move toward the tomb still learning what its presence means; the verse holds them at the edge of what they do not yet see.
ALSO GROWS
manthanō: To learn.
μανθάνω
This verb shows the learning contained in the identity of a disciple.
mathēma: A lesson, something learned.
μάθημα
The learner’s path leads toward an encounter that can become a lesson.
THE PATTERN
The journey toward a place marked by death becomes an encounter that reopens what the witnesses understand.
Then the other disciple, who had come first to the tomb, also went in, and he perceived, and trusted.And some of those with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not perceive.He is not here, for he was raised, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.THE THREAD
Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid.John uses the same Greek word, μνημεῖον (mnēmeion), for the new sepulchre in the garden. Peter approaches a place named for remembrance that has already been set within a garden, where the memory of death meets a setting associated with life.
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