What Does John 21:23 Mean?
So this word went out among the brothers, that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, "If I will that he stay until I come, what is that to you?"
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
Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?THE KEY
The rumor turns Jesus’ open “if” into a closed “will,” showing how repetition can make possibility sound like promise.
THE MEANING
Right now, words about Jesus can travel farther than their conditions, until a possibility sounds like a promise. Jesus leaves the disciple’s future conditional and asks the reader to notice the distance between what he says and what people conclude. “What is that to thee?” brings the question close: another person’s path is not yours to claim as a certainty.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that Jesus promised this disciple would never die; the rumor says more than Jesus does.
THE ROOT
ἐξῆλθεν
exēlthen
GROWS FROM
ἔρχομαι (erchomai), with ἐξέρχομαι (exerchomai)
To go or come; to move from one place to another.
The saying that “went abroad” is built from the same verb family as Jesus’ “come.” English separates the report’s journey from the coming it misstates, while Greek places both movements side by side: the saying goes out, and Jesus speaks of coming.
ALSO GROWS
exēlthen: Went out, went forth.
ἐξῆλθεν
This is how the saying travels among the brethren.
erchomai: Come, arrive.
ἔρχομαι
This is Jesus’ word for his coming, the event the rumor turns into a certainty.
μένειν
menein
GROWS FROM
μένω
menō
To remain, stay, continue, or abide.
“tarry” in this verse is menein. Jesus speaks of the disciple remaining, but only within an “if.” The word can describe continuing presence, while the sentence itself leaves its duration open; the rumor erases that openness.
ALSO GROWS
monē: A dwelling or abiding place.
μονή
This related word appears as “mansions” in John 14:2, linking remaining with a place to dwell.
epimenō: Continue, persist, remain.
ἐπιμένω
This compound carries the same root into the sense of continuing, reinforcing that “tarry” names remaining rather than a prediction of never dying.
THE PATTERN
A report can turn words it has only partly heard into a certainty the speaker never claimed.
The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.We heard him say, I will break down this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another not made with hands.As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to perceive, which the untaught and the unsteady twist, as they also twist the other writings, to their own perishing.THE THREAD
Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it stays in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.The Greek verb translated “tarry” here is μένω (menō), the same verb rendered “abide” in John 15:4. There it describes continuing in connection, showing the depth of “remain” without changing John 21’s open condition about how long the disciple remains.
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