What Does Revelation 1:14 Mean?
His head and his hair are white like wool, white like snow, and his eyes are like a flame of fire.
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
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;THE KEY
The Greek word for white also carries brightness, placing the head’s radiance beside eyes that burn with fire.
THE MEANING
The image holds whiteness and fire in one face: its radiance is clear, and its gaze is searching. You stand before a presence in which nothing is blurred or concealed.
THE ROOT
λευκός
leukos
GROWS FROM
λευκ-
leuk-
White or bright; a stem joining whiteness with brilliance.
The stem λευκ- carries whiteness and brightness together, and λευκαίνω uses the same seed for making white. The repeated snow-and-wool image therefore holds radiance and whiteness as one quality, beside eyes burning with fire.
ALSO GROWS
leukainō: To make white, whiten.
λευκαίνω
The same stem appears in Revelation’s image of robes made white, linking whiteness here with a state that can be brought about.
leukotēs: Whiteness, brightness.
λευκότης
This noun makes explicit the shared quality carried by the white head and the snowlike comparison.
THE PATTERN
When divine presence is unveiled, luminous whiteness and fire make its brightness and searching gaze visible.
I saw until the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days sat. His garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head was like clean wool. His throne was flames of fire, and his wheels were burning fire.And his shape was changed before them, and his face blazed as the sun, and his garments became white as the light.His eyes are as a flame of fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written that no one knows but himself.THE THREAD
And I say to him, My lord, you know. And he says to me, These are the ones who come out of the great pressure, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.The verb translated “made them white” is λευκαίνω, built on the same λευκ- stem as λευκός, the word behind the whiteness here. Across the two verses, whiteness is both seen in the revealed figure and borne by those whose robes are washed.
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