What Does John 8:20 Mean in the King James?
These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.
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
No hand can seize Jesus into an hour that has not yet arrived.
THE MEANING
Jesus teaches in the temple’s treasury, fully in public view; yet no one takes hold of him because his hour has not yet arrived. The reader now sees reach and timing held apart: being within someone’s grasp does not make that person the author of the moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the belief that being physically reachable means being wholly at another’s command.
THE ROOT
ὥρα
hōra
GROWS FROM
ὡρ-
Season, time, the fitting or appointed moment.
English “hour” can sound like a clock measurement, but ὥρα (hōra, hour or season) also names a fitting moment. Its word family carries the sense of ripeness and timely beauty, so “his hour” holds the feel of a moment with its own proper arrival.
ALSO GROWS
hōraios: Seasonable, timely; also beautiful or in its prime.
ὡραῖος
The sense of being in season illuminates the verse’s “not yet”: the moment has not reached its proper time.
hōraiotēs: Beauty, bloom, or the prime of life.
ὡραιότης
This related form carries the sense of ripeness, adding depth to the idea of an hour that arrives when its time is full.
THE PATTERN
The reach of human hands does not determine the appointed time.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.THE THREAD
And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.John 12:23 uses the same Greek word ὥρα (hōra, hour or season), but now Jesus declares that it has arrived. The shift from “not yet” here to “is come” there makes the timing visible without letting the reaching hands define it.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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