What Does Revelation 2:14 Mean?
But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who grip the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a snare before the children of Israel, to eat things offered to images and to commit fornication.
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
But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.THE KEY
Balaam’s teaching does not merely name a wrong path; it shows how instruction can place a trap that draws others into it.
THE MEANING
This verse names a danger wherever counsel shapes what a community accepts: instruction can make a snare look like participation. Here the trap runs through food sacrificed to idols and sexual betrayal, joining allegiance to appetite. The verse speaks to you wherever a teacher’s guidance forms the path others are invited to follow.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that teaching is harmless simply because it arrives as instruction or invitation; counsel can be used to set a trap for others.
THE ROOT
σκάνδαλον
skandalon
GROWS FROM
σκανδαλ-
Greek stem
A trap trigger, snare, or cause of stumbling.
The word can carry the sense of a snare, making the stumblingblock more than an accidental obstacle: it is something placed in another’s path. The verse presents Balaam’s teaching as the means of setting that trap.
ALSO GROWS
skandalizō: To cause to stumble or ensnare.
σκανδαλίζω
The verb makes the trap an action: someone can cause another to fall by what they place in the way.
skandalismos: A cause of stumbling or offense.
σκανδαλισμός
This related noun keeps the sense of a placed cause of falling, echoing the snare described here.
διδαχή
didachē
GROWS FROM
διδαχ- (from διδάσκω, didaskō)
Teaching or instruction.
This word names instruction that can shape conduct, not just an abstract opinion. In this verse, the teaching has a practical destination: it guides others toward a snare.
ALSO GROWS
didaskō: To teach or instruct.
διδάσκω
This verb shows the action behind the doctrine: someone teaches a path others may follow.
didaskalia: Teaching or instruction.
διδασκαλία
This related word likewise carries the sense of instruction, underscoring how teaching can form the conduct described in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A stumbling point can be planted through what people are invited to accept, until participation becomes a snare.
And they called the people to the slaughtered offerings of their gods, and the people ate, and bowed down to their gods.But watch, lest somehow this right of yours become a stone for the weak to stumble over.Woe to the world for its snares! For they must come; but woe to that man through whom the snare comes!THE THREAD
But watch, lest somehow this right of yours become a stone for the weak to stumble over.“Stumblingblock” translates the same Greek word, σκάνδαλον (skandalon), in both verses. Revelation shows a trap deliberately set through teaching; here, even a person’s liberty can become a cause of falling for someone else.
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