What Does John 7:20 Mean?
The crowd answered, You have a demon; who seeks to kill you?
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
The people answered and said, Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee?THE KEY
The crowd’s “Who seeks to kill you?” is answered by the next verse: people in Jerusalem already know Jesus is being sought.
THE MEANING
When a threat sounds impossible to the crowd, they can attack the speaker’s credibility instead of examining the threat. Here, the next verse makes their dismissal unstable: people in Jerusalem know Jesus is being sought for death.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If everyone dismisses a danger, it must not be real.
THE ROOT
ζητεῖ
zētei
GROWS FROM
ζητ- (zēt-), from ζητέω (zēteō)
to seek, search for, or pursue
The Greek asks, “Who seeks you to kill?”, the same verb for seeking appears again in John 7:25. The KJV’s “goeth about” can make the pursuit sound vague, while the Greek links the crowd’s question directly to the search for Jesus’ life.
ALSO GROWS
epizēteō: seek after, desire
ἐπιζητέω
This branch shows seeking as directed pursuit, sharpening the force of the crowd’s question.
zētēsis: a search, inquiry, or dispute
ζήτησις
This related noun joins the act of searching to the question and contention surrounding it.
THE PATTERN
Hearers can recast disruptive speech as madness or possession instead of engaging what it says.
And many of them said, He has a demon and is raving. Why do you hear him?And as he thus spoke for himself, Festus said with a great voice, Paul, you are beside yourself; the many letters have turned you to madness.Then Jehu came out to the servants of his lord, and one said to him, Is all whole? Why did this mad fellow come to you? And he said to them, You know the man, and his speech.THE THREAD
Then some of them from Jerusalem said, Is not this he whom they seek to kill?The Greek repeats the same verb for “seek” in both verses. What sounds like mockery in the crowd’s question becomes explicit knowledge in the next verse: people in Jerusalem know that Jesus is being sought.
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