What Does John 6:59 Mean?
He said these things in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
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
These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.THE KEY
The word for synagogue carries the action of gathering people together, placing the teaching among a gathered people.
THE MEANING
The teaching meets you in a gathered space, where it is heard among people rather than held as private knowledge. The verse keeps teaching and assembly together: what is spoken is shared hearing.
THE ROOT
συναγωγή
synagōgē
GROWS FROM
συνάγω
synagō
To bring together; to gather.
The word translated “synagogue” grows from the verb “to gather together.” The place of teaching therefore carries gathering in its name: instruction happens among people assembled to hear.
ALSO GROWS
synagō: To gather together, bring together.
συνάγω
This verb is the seed of “synagogue” and makes the gathering motion inside the word visible.
episynagōgē: A gathering together, an assembly.
ἐπισυναγωγή
This related noun uses the same root and shows the word family still joining people together.
THE PATTERN
Instruction gathers people into shared hearing.
Assemble the people, the men, the women, and the little ones, and the sojourner within your gates, so that they may hear and respond, and so that they may learn, and be struck with awe of the LORD your God, and guard to do all the words of this instruction;And he began again to teach beside the sea. A great crowd was gathered together to him, so that he entered a boat and sat in the sea, and the whole crowd was on the land beside the sea.And after the reading of the instruction and the prophets, the heads of the synagogue sent to them, saying, Men and brothers, if you have any word of urging for the people, speak.THE THREAD
And not for that nation only, but that he would also gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad.“Gather together” here comes from the same Greek root carried by “synagogue” in the current verse. The shared root reveals the motion inside the place-name: people who are scattered are brought together.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us