What Does John 7:47 Mean?
Then the separated ones answered them, Have you also been led off the path?
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
Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?THE KEY
The question turns disagreement into proof of deception before it tests what the hearers have seen.
THE MEANING
When someone hears a voice that does not fit the accepted verdict, the response can be to call the listener deceived before weighing what they heard. This question treats a changed judgment as evidence of wandering.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being labeled deceived does not prove that you have lost your way; the accusation may protect a verdict that has not been reconsidered.
THE ROOT
πλανᾶσθε
planasthe
GROWS FROM
πλαν-
plan-
To wander or stray; in this verb, to lead astray.
“led off the path” in this verse is planasthe. The form here means “are you being led astray?” The root also names wandering itself, so the question frames the hearers as people who have left the path before addressing what they heard.
ALSO GROWS
planē: Wandering; error
πλάνη
It shows that what English calls deception can also be pictured as movement off course.
planētēs: Wanderer; wandering star
πλανήτης
The same root names one that wanders, making the image of being led astray concrete.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures deception and error as wandering from a way.
All of us like sheep have wandered; each has turned to his own way, and the LORD has caused the crookedness of us all to fall upon him.My brethren, if anyone among you wanders away from the truth, and someone turns him back.But evil humankind and chanting deceivers will cut their way forward toward the worse, leading others off the path and wandering themselves.THE THREAD
What seems to you? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders, does he not leave the ninety and nine, and go into the mountains, and seek the one that wanders?“Gone astray” uses the same Greek root, πλαν- (plan-), as “deceived” here: both can describe wandering from a way. The link leaves open what the question shuts down: whether the hearers are truly off course, or simply outside the path the speaker expects.
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