What Does John 6:70 Mean?
Jesus answered them, Did I not pick you out, the twelve, and yet one of you is the Slanderer?
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
Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?THE KEY
Being chosen does not place a person beyond the capacity to become an adversary within the circle.
THE MEANING
A trusted circle can contain someone who turns relationship into accusation: belonging does not cancel the harm that person can carry. The word translated “devil” is διάβολος (diabolos, Slanderer), naming an adversarial force that works across a bond.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that being selected or included proves a person’s character and makes betrayal impossible.
THE ROOT
διάβολος
diabolos
GROWS FROM
βαλλ
βαλλ (ball): throw, cast; in the compound διαβάλλω, the action becomes throwing an accusation across.
“the Slanderer” in this verse is diabolos. διάβολος (diabolos, Slanderer) comes through διαβάλλω (diabállō, to slander or accuse), built from βαλλ (ball, to throw or cast). The word makes the fracture visible as something cast across a relationship, turning an insider into an adversarial force.
ALSO GROWS
bállō: to throw, cast
βάλλω
This verb supplies the seed of the compound: the image of something being cast.
diabállō: to slander, accuse
διαβάλλω
This compound gives the word its relational force: an accusation is cast across a bond.
ἐξελεξάμην
exeleksamēn
GROWS FROM
λεγ
λεγ (leg): the selecting stem in this family; ἐκλέγομαι means to choose or select.
The verb marks the twelve as a selected group, yet the sentence does not make selection a certificate of unbroken character. Chosen belonging and an adversarial presence can coexist within the same circle.
ALSO GROWS
eklegomai: to choose, select
ἐκλέγομαι
This verb names the act carried by the form translated “chosen.”
eklogē: choice, selection
ἐκλογή
This related noun names the act of selecting, keeping the idea of chosen status connected to the verb.
THE PATTERN
A trusted circle can be fractured from within by betrayal or slander.
Even the man of my wholeness, upon whom I leaned my weight, eats my bread and lifts his heel against me.As supper was ending, the Slanderer had already cast into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to hand him over;The aged women likewise, in a bearing that becomes what is set apart, not hurling accusations, not enslaved to much wine, teachers of good things.THE THREAD
As supper was ending, the Slanderer had already cast into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to hand him over;John 13:2 uses διάβολος (diabolos, Slanderer), the same Greek word translated “devil” here, and connects it with Judas and betrayal. The next scene makes the tension concrete: the adversarial force touches someone within the circle.
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