What Does John 13:22 Mean in the King James?
Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake.
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 disciples’ “doubting” is a shared impasse: the words leave them no path to the person he means.
THE MEANING
When a sentence leaves you without a way to locate its meaning, uncertainty can show in the faces around you. The disciples’ shared glance makes their confusion visible: they cannot tell whom he means.
THE ROOT
ἀπορούμενοι
aporoumenoi
GROWS FROM
ἀπορ-
apor-
The word carries the sense of having no way through: ἄπορος (áporos) means “without a passage or way.”
The word translated “doubting” describes being at a loss, as if no path leads from what was said to the person meant. Their glance at one another shows that this impasse is shared; the verse does not say they reject what he says.
ALSO GROWS
áporos: Without a way or passage; at a loss.
ἄπορος
This adjective makes the image beneath their uncertainty visible: they cannot find a path to the person he means.
aporía: Perplexity; an impasse.
ἀπορία
This noun names the condition their exchanged glances reveal: they have no clear way through the meaning.
THE PATTERN
When meaning has no clear path through, perplexity becomes visible in how people look to one another.
And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean, behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made enquiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate,THE THREAD
And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:“Perplexed” comes from the same Greek word family as “doubting” here. In both verses, the root pictures having no way through what is being seen or said; it reveals uncertainty as an impasse, not necessarily rejection.
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