What Does John 6:4 Mean?
And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.
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 passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.THE KEY
“Nigh” makes Passover the threshold for the bread that follows: provision arrives within the story of release.
THE MEANING
Passover stands near, so the coming bread carries the shape of deliverance into the reader’s present hunger. The verse places release and provision together at the threshold.
THE ROOT
ἐγγύς
engýs
GROWS FROM
ἐγγυ-
Near, close at hand in space or time.
English “nigh” can sound like a bare date marker, while this Greek word belongs to a family that also means drawing near and nearer. Passover is an approaching threshold, so the sign that follows unfolds under the nearness of deliverance.
ALSO GROWS
engízō: Draw near; approach.
ἐγγίζω
This related verb makes nearness a movement toward something, illuminating Passover as an approaching threshold.
engýteros: Nearer; closer.
ἐγγύτερος
This comparative form shows the root can express increasing closeness, not only a date on a calendar.
פֶּסַח
pesaḥ
GROWS FROM
פסח
Pass over; spare, the action named by Passover.
“Passover” in this verse is pesaḥ. The name carries the Hebrew verb for passing over to spare. That root places release at the center of the approaching feast and frames the bread scene through deliverance.
ALSO GROWS
pāsaḥ: Pass over; spare.
פָּסַח
This verb names the action carried in the feast’s name: being passed over and spared.
páscha: Passover; the feast named in the verse.
πάσχα
This Greek form is borrowed from the Hebrew name and carries its root into John’s sentence.
THE PATTERN
A shared meal carries deliverance into the present through visible provision.
And this day will be for you a remembrance. You will keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations, a statute for the ages.And when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, Manna, what is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show the Lord's death until he comes.THE THREAD
And the blood will be a mark for you upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will leap over you, and the blow will not be upon you to ruin you when I strike down the land of Egypt.The root פסח (pāsaḥ, “pass over, spare”) appears here as the action carried in the feast’s name. John places Passover near the bread sign, so the coming provision stands within that same pattern of release.
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