What Does John 5:1 Mean?
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
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
After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.THE KEY
The Greek says Jesus steps upward: the movement toward the feast already leans toward Jerusalem’s wholeness.
THE MEANING
A feast is unfolding, and Jesus goes up to Jerusalem; the scene holds celebration and ascent together. His name carries deliverance, and the city-name carries wholeness, so the verse lets both meet in the same direction of travel.
THE ROOT
ἀνέβη
anebē
GROWS FROM
βαίνω
to step, go, move on foot
The Greek verb ἀνέβη is a form of ἀναβαίνω, built on βαίνω: the ascent contains the sense of stepping. English can make “went up” sound like a travel note, while the Greek keeps the movement itself vivid as Jesus approaches Jerusalem.
ALSO GROWS
bainō: to step, go, or walk
βαίνω
This is the verb beneath the ascent: going up is made of steps.
epibainō: to step onto, board, or embark
ἐπιβαίνω
The same verbal seed describes movement onto a path or vessel, keeping the sense of an actual step into motion.
basis: a step, footing, or base
βάσις
The related noun makes the link between movement and footing explicit: a journey begins with a step.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
to deliver from narrowness into spaciousness
“Jesus” in this verse is Yeshua. The name carries deliverance as nature: movement out of constriction and into room. Here that name accompanies an ascent toward Jerusalem, whose own name carries the sound of wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
The name and the word for deliverance share the same root, so Jesus’ name carries the quality of bringing out.
moshia: deliverer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This word names one who brings deliverance, extending the same root from the act to the one who performs it.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
to be whole, complete, or made sound
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries the sound of shalom, wholeness; ascent toward the city therefore resonates with movement toward completeness. The feast and the city-name hold gathering and wholeness together in this scene.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness, completeness
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch makes the wholeness carried in Jerusalem’s name audible.
shalem: whole, complete, sound
שָׁלֵם
This branch describes the state of being whole, giving the destination’s name a quality beyond a place on a map.
THE PATTERN
Scripture frames movement toward Jerusalem as a shared approach to the presence of God.
Three times in a year all your males shall be seen before the face of the LORD your God in the place he will choose, at the feast of unsoured bread, at the feast of weeks, and at the feast of booths. They shall not be seen before the face of the LORD empty.A Song of degrees of David. I rejoice when they say to me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the Jerusalem of the heavens, and to myriads of messengers.THE THREAD
But when his brothers had gone up, then he also went up to the feast, not in plain view, but as if in hiding.The Greek repeats the same ascent verb, ἀναβαίνω, and keeps the feast tied to the movement toward Jerusalem. The added secrecy changes the manner of the ascent while its direction remains.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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