What Does 2 Peter 3:12 Mean in the King James?
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word translated “dissolved” means “loosened”: even the heavens are pictured as coming unfastened.
THE MEANING
You are looking toward the day of God and hastening toward its arrival, a day pictured with the heavens burning and the elements melting in fierce heat. Even the structures that seem most fixed stand within this vision of coming unmaking.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that the visible order holding your world together is permanent; even the heavens and elements are subject to unmaking.
THE ROOT
λυθήσονται
luthēsontai
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
To loosen, unbind, or release.
The verb beneath “dissolved” carries the sense of something being loosened or unbound. In this verse, that image reaches all the way to the heavens and the elements.
ALSO GROWS
lyō: Loosen; unbind.
λύω
This is the verb used in the verse and in Jesus’ command to “Loose him” when Lazarus comes out bound in graveclothes (John 11:44).
apolyō: Release; dismiss.
ἀπολύω
This related verb uses the same root for releasing someone, showing how loosening can mean letting a person go.
katalyō: Loosen down; dismantle or destroy.
καταλύω
The same root appears in a word for taking something apart, adding a sense of unmaking to the verse’s image.
στοιχεῖα
stoicheia
GROWS FROM
στοιχ-
stoich-
A row or ordered sequence; by extension, an element or basic constituent.
The word can refer to basic constituents or elementary principles. Here, even the world’s fundamental elements are pictured as melting in the heat.
ALSO GROWS
stoicheion: An element or elementary principle.
στοιχεῖον
This is the singular form of the word translated “elements,” naming a basic constituent of the order that is melting.
stoicheō: Walk in line; keep in step.
στοιχέω
This related verb appears as “walk” in Galatians 5:25, linking the word family with moving in an ordered line.
THE PATTERN
What is made can be shaken, changed, and removed, while what endures remains.
They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.THE THREAD
And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.The same Greek verb translated “dissolved” here appears in Jesus’ command, “Loose him,” as Lazarus comes out bound in graveclothes. The shared word carries the image of what is held fast being unbound, from a person’s wrappings to the elements of the heavens.
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