What Does Jude 1:6 Mean?
And the messengers who did not keep their own beginning, but left their own dwelling, he has kept them in age-long chains under the gloom for the judgment of the great day.
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
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.THE KEY
The Greek word translated “reserved” is the same word translated “kept”: the ones who did not keep their own domain are themselves kept under darkness.
THE MEANING
The verse holds departure and restraint together: the angels leave their own dwelling, and God keeps them in everlasting chains beneath darkness until the great day. Their leaving does not put them beyond God’s keeping. Judgment remains ahead while their confinement is already in place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that leaving one’s appointed place means escaping accountability; the angels remain held for judgment after they leave.
THE ROOT
τηρέω
tēreō
GROWS FROM
τηρέω
tēreō
To keep watch over, guard, or preserve.
“did not keep” in this verse is tēreō. The Greek uses this same verb first for what the angels failed to do and then for what God does to them. The KJV’s “kept” and “reserved” conceal the echo: they do not keep their domain, and they are kept under restraint.
ALSO GROWS
tērētēs: A keeper or observer.
τηρητής
This related word makes the root’s sense of guarding visible in the angels’ failure to keep their domain.
tērēsis: Keeping or custody.
τήρησις
Its sense of custody illuminates the second use of the verb, where God keeps them until judgment.
ἀρχή
archē
GROWS FROM
ἀρχή
archē
Beginning, first place, rule, or authority.
“own beginning” in this verse is archē. “First estate” translates a word that can name both a beginning and a domain of authority. Their failure is not simply a change of address: they do not keep the sphere entrusted to them.
ALSO GROWS
archōn: A ruler or one who holds authority.
ἄρχων
This branch brings out the authority contained in the word for the angels’ “first estate.”
archēgos: A leader or originator.
ἀρχηγός
Its link to beginning and leadership echoes the sense of an original place or order.
οἰκητήριον
oikētērion
GROWS FROM
οἶκος
oikos
House, dwelling, or household.
This is a dwelling-place word from the Greek οἰκ- family, and “their own” ties the dwelling to the angels who leave it. Together with ἀρχή, the verse names both a domain and a dwelling abandoned.
ALSO GROWS
oikeō: To dwell or inhabit.
οἰκέω
This verb makes the habitation’s basic sense concrete: a place where someone dwells.
oikia: A house or home.
οἰκία
This related word shows the household sense carried by the same word family.
THE PATTERN
A present condition can hold a life in readiness for an appointed judgment.
The Lord knows how to bring the reverent out of trial, and to keep the unaligned for the day of judgment, to be cut back.But according to your stiffness and a heart that will not turn, you store up the burning of anger for yourself in the day of anger and the unveiling of the aligned judgment of God.And I see the dead, small and great, standing before God. The scrolls are opened, and another scroll is opened, which is the book of life. The dead are judged by the things written in the scrolls, according to their works.THE THREAD
For if God did not hold back the messengers who missed the mark, but cast them down into the deep pit, handing them over to chains of murk, to be kept for judgment.Jude uses τηρέω twice: the angels fail to keep their domain, and God keeps them in chains. Peter uses the same verb for their being kept unto judgment, making the repeated root in Jude’s “kept” and “reserved” unmistakable.
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