What Does John 4:3 Mean?
He let go of Judea, and went away again into Galilee.
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
He left Judæa, and departed again into Galilee.THE KEY
The Greek verb translated “left” also means “let go,” so the journey from Judea to Galilee carries release within its movement.
THE MEANING
The verse holds departure and release together: Jesus leaves Judea and goes again toward Galilee. The Greek verb translated “left” also carries the sense of letting go, so the movement has a depth beyond distance.
THE ROOT
ἀφῆκεν
aphēken
GROWS FROM
ἀφιη-/ἀφε- (aphiē-/aphe-)
Let go, release, send away, or leave.
“let go of” in this verse is aphēken. The word translated “left” belongs to a Greek family that also names release and forgiveness. English presents the departure as movement between places; the shared root lets the act of leaving carry the added sense of loosening one’s hold.
ALSO GROWS
aphesis: Release, dismissal, or forgiveness.
ἄφεσις
This noun names release directly; in Luke 4:18 it is translated “deliverance,” revealing the same letting-go quality beneath “left.”
apheōntai: They have been released or forgiven.
ἀφέωνται
In John 20:23, the same verb family describes sins being forgiven, extending the word’s sense of release from leaving a place to letting an offense go.
THE PATTERN
Release makes movement possible: what is left behind gives way to another place or condition.
And the LORD said to Abram, Go away from your land, from your land of birth, and from your father's house, to the land I will let you see.And straightway they let go of the nets, and followed him.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.The Greek noun ἄφεσις (aphesis), meaning “release” or “deliverance,” comes from the same family as the verb translated “left” here. In John the word marks departure from Judea; in Luke it names captives being released, making the shared sense of letting go visible.
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