What Does John 5:18 Mean?
So for this reason the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his own Father, making himself equal to God.
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
Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.THE KEY
The flashpoint is not only what he does on the Sabbath, but the claim that God is his own Father, a relation they hear as equality.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes a live fault line: Sabbath practice and divine kinship collapse into one accusation. Calling God his own Father is heard as a claim to equal standing, and the desire to kill shows how violently that reading is received. The text leaves both the intimacy and its violent reception in view.
THE ROOT
ἴσον
ison
GROWS FROM
ἴσος
isos
Same in measure, level, or standing.
The word carries the force of parity, not mere resemblance. The verse makes equal standing the accusation at the center of the conflict.
ALSO GROWS
isotēs: equality, equal standing
ἰσότης
It makes explicit that this word family can speak about status, not only likeness.
isotimos: equally honored, of equal value
ἰσότιμος
Its language of equal honor sharpens what is at stake in the claim.
ἔλυεν
elyen
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
To loosen, unbind, or release.
“broke” in this verse is elyen. The verb rendered “had broken” belongs to a word family whose basic image is loosening or unbinding. That shade sits beneath the stated Sabbath violation; it does not erase the verse’s charge.
ALSO GROWS
lysis: a loosening, release, or dissolution
λύσις
It preserves the family’s sense of something being unbound.
apolyō: release, dismiss, or send away
ἀπολύω
It carries the same root into the act of letting someone go.
πατέρα
patera
GROWS FROM
πατήρ
patēr
Father; a source or ancestor.
Father belongs to a word family that also speaks of lineage and homeland, so it names source and belonging as well as a title. Here, “his own Father” makes the relationship personal, which is why the verse connects it to a claim of standing with God.
ALSO GROWS
patria: family, lineage, or descent
πατριά
The family word grows from the same root and shows its reach into belonging.
patris: homeland or native place
πατρίς
The same family can name the place of one’s origin.
THE PATTERN
Divine sonship language presses relationship into a question of identity and standing.
I have said, You are gods, and all of you are children of the Uppermost.The Jews answered him, It is not for a good work that we stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being human, make yourself God.THE THREAD
Who, being in the shape of God, did not count standing level with God a thing to be grasped.“Equal” here comes from the same ἴσος (isos) word family as ἴσον (ison) in John 5:18. John names equality as the ground of the threat; Philippians uses the same word family in a description of relation to God.
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