What Does John 6:18 Mean?
And the sea was roused by a great wind that blew.
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
And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew.THE KEY
The sea is not merely rising; the Greek pictures it being roused, as if the wind awakens the water.
THE MEANING
The waters around you can rise because a force is moving through them; the turbulence is real and has a cause. The verse names the wind driving the surface while the deeper scene is still unfolding.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the thought that turbulence is causeless: the verse names the great wind as the force stirring the sea.
THE ROOT
διηγείρετο
diegeireto
GROWS FROM
ἐγείρω
egeirō
To wake, rouse, or raise.
KJV’s “arose” can sound like a neutral change in level, while διηγείρετο (diegeireto, was being roused) carries a sense of agitation. Its root connects the sea’s movement to awakening and rising.
ALSO GROWS
egeirō: To wake or raise; the verb can describe waking someone from sleep or raising the dead.
ἐγείρω
This root makes the sea’s movement sound like something being stirred awake, not only water changing height.
egersis: A rising or resurrection; used for resurrection in Matthew 27:53.
ἔγερσις
The root family reaches from a rousing to a rising, giving the verse’s motion a wider resonance.
πνέοντος
pneontos
GROWS FROM
πνέω
pneō
To blow or set air in motion.
“blew” in this verse is pneontos. The verse names ἄνεμος (anemos, wind) as the force and πνέοντος (pneontos, blowing) as its action. The verb belongs to the family of πνεῦμα (pneuma, wind, spirit, breath), keeping blowing air linked to a word-family that can name wind, breath, and spirit.
ALSO GROWS
pneuma: Wind, spirit, or breath.
πνεῦμα
This related noun carries the same moving-air sense while also naming spirit and breath.
pnoē: A blowing or breath; in Acts 2:2 it describes a rushing wind.
πνοή
This branch uses the same family for the force of moving air, echoing the wind that stirs the sea here.
THE PATTERN
Wind-stirred waters reveal both the force moving them and the authority that can meet their movement.
But the LORD hurled a great breath onto the sea, and there was a mighty storm in the sea, so that the ship reckoned it would be broken.He makes the storm stand in stillness, and its waves are hushed.And waking, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Be silent. Be muzzled. And the wind wore itself out, and a great calm came.THE THREAD
And waking, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Be silent. Be muzzled. And the wind wore itself out, and a great calm came.John names a great wind rousing the sea; Mark gives that same pairing a spoken response, as Jesus commands both the wind and the sea. The second scene makes visible the authority that meets the turbulence in the first.
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