What Does John 20:4 Mean?
The two of them ran together, and the other disciple ran ahead of Peter, and came first 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
So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.THE KEY
The word for the tomb is also the word for a memorial, so the disciples are racing toward a place whose name already holds remembrance.
THE MEANING
Your pace can differ from the person beside you even as you move toward the same encounter. Arrival marks a threshold; by itself, it does not tell you what you have found.
THE ROOT
μνημεῖον
mnēmeion
GROWS FROM
μνη-
mnē-
Remember; keep in mind.
“tomb” in this verse is mnēmeion. The Greek word translated “sepulchre” also means a memorial or place of remembrance, from the family of μνήμη (mnēmē, “memory”). The disciples race toward a place defined by remembrance, while the meaning of that remembrance remains open until someone enters and sees.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: Memory, remembrance.
μνήμη
This related word makes the tomb’s memorial sense audible inside the English “sepulchre.”
mnēmoneuō: Remember, call to mind.
μνημονεύω
This verb from the same word family links the place they reach with the act of remembering.
μαθητής
mathētēs
GROWS FROM
μανθ-
manth-
Learn; come to understand.
The person called a disciple is, in the word itself, a learner. He reaches the tomb first, but this verse does not equate arriving first with having already understood.
ALSO GROWS
manthanō: Learn, come to understand.
μανθάνω
This verb is the source of the learner-language in “disciple.”
mathēma: A lesson; something learned.
μάθημα
This related word keeps learning in view at the threshold where the disciples have arrived.
THE PATTERN
A shared direction can hold different speeds, and scripture measures the way by more than speed alone.
I run the way of your commands, when you widen my heart.I turn back and see under the sun that the running is not to the light of foot, nor the battle to the mighty, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the discerning, nor favor to those who perceive; for time and the striking meet them all.Therefore, since we also have so great a cloud of witnesses lying around us, setting down every weight and falling short that so easily wraps around us, let us run the race lying before us, remaining under it.THE THREAD
Then the other disciple, who had come first to the tomb, also went in, and he perceived, and trusted.The same word, μνημεῖον (mnēmeion), names the tomb as a place of remembrance. Here the disciple who arrives first enters, sees, and believes: the movement from reaching the threshold to encountering what is there becomes explicit.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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