What Does John 2:20 Mean in the King James?
Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
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 “rear it up” also means “wake,” so the question about a building carries the verb of resurrection.
THE MEANING
The visible temple invites a calculation in decades, but that measure cannot hold the living temple standing before you. Raising it in three days is on another scale: the verb can speak of awakening, and the next verse identifies the temple with a body.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the assumption that God’s dwelling is only a human-built structure, and that whatever is raised must follow the structure’s timetable.
THE ROOT
ἐγείρεις
egeireis
GROWS FROM
ἐγερ- / ἐγειρ-
The Greek verb stem means to awaken, rouse, or raise up.
“rear it up” in this verse is egeireis. In English, this sounds like lifting a structure; the Greek verb also means waking someone and is used for being raised from death. The question carries a second scale inside it: the temple’s three-day raising can be heard as awakening to life, which the next verse makes explicit as a body.
ALSO GROWS
egeirousin: They wake or awaken.
ἐγείρουσιν
In Mark 4:38 this form describes the disciples waking Jesus, showing that the verb reaches from raising something to waking someone.
ēgerthē: He was raised; he is risen.
ἠγέρθη
In Matthew 28:6 this form describes Jesus’ resurrection, bringing the same root’s meaning of raising into clear view.
THE PATTERN
God’s dwelling is not confined to a constructed sanctuary; scripture locates it among people, in the human body, and in God and the Lamb themselves.
And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.THE THREAD
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.The same Greek verb, ἐγείρω (egeirō), “to awaken or raise up,” appears in both verses. John 2:21 identifies the temple as his body, so the three days point to resurrection rather than rebuilding.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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