What Does Jude 1:18 Mean?
For they said to you that in the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own cravings without awe.
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
How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.THE KEY
What KJV calls “ungodly lusts” is phrased as desires “of irreverence,” joining the mocker’s ridicule to the direction of their craving.
THE MEANING
You can recognize this pattern now: a scoffing voice and the craving it follows belong to one direction, desire without reverence. The verse describes a way of moving in which each step is shaped by what a person longs for.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that mockery is only a style of speech, detached from a life: here the scoffer’s words and desires are bound together.
THE ROOT
ἀσεβειῶν
asebeiōn
GROWS FROM
σεβ-
seb-
Revere, hold in reverence.
The form translated “ungodly” is ἀσεβειῶν (asebeiōn, “of irreverence”), from ἀσέβεια (asebeia, “irreverence”), built around σέβομαι (sebomai, “to revere”). The line names the direction of these desires as one without reverence.
ALSO GROWS
sebomai: Revere, hold in reverence.
σέβομαι
This is the root’s basic orientation, the quality absent from the desires described here.
eusebeia: Reverence, devotion.
εὐσέβεια
Its positive form shows that the root concerns what a life holds in reverence.
asebeia: Irreverence, impiety.
ἀσέβεια
This is the quality that characterizes the desires the verse describes.
ἐπιθυμίας
epithymias
GROWS FROM
θυμ-
thym-
Passion, heat, strong impulse.
“lusts” in this verse is epithymias. Ἐπιθυμία (epithymia, “desire”) carries θυμός (thymos, “passion, heat”) within it. The verse ties this inner surge to its direction: these are desires that follow irreverence.
ALSO GROWS
epithymeō: Desire, long for.
ἐπιθυμέω
The related verb makes desire active: a longing reaches toward what it wants.
thymos: Passion, heat, strong impulse.
θυμός
The root’s sense of inner heat gives the verse’s desires the force of an impulse that can set a course.
ἐμπαῖκται
empaiktai
GROWS FROM
παίζω
paizō
Play, sport.
“mockers” in this verse is empaiktai. Ἐμπαίκτης (empaiktēs, “mocker”) comes through ἐμπαίζω (empaizō, “mock, make sport of”), built on παίζω (paizō, “play, sport”). Ridicule makes sport of what it treats lightly, and Jude binds that posture to a path of irreverent desire.
ALSO GROWS
paizō: Play, sport.
παίζω
The base word reveals the playfulness contained in the image behind mockery.
empaizō: Mock, make sport of.
ἐμπαίζω
This related verb shows ridicule as turning something into sport.
THE PATTERN
When desire becomes its own guide, it sets a person’s path, and speech carries that same direction.
Flourishing is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of those who miss the mark, nor sit in the seat of the scoffers.But each one is tested by his own craving, dragged out and lured.Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come, walking after their own cravings,THE THREAD
Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come, walking after their own cravings,Jude 1:18 and 2 Peter 3:3 share the same Greek wording for mockers, the last period, and desires, and both describe those desires as the course the mockers follow. The shared roots make the link between ridicule and the direction of desire unmistakable.
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