What Does Revelation 2:6 Mean?
But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
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 this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.THE KEY
Here, shared hatred is aimed at what the Nicolaitans do, keeping the judgment focused on their deeds.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you now: you recognize the Nicolaitans’ deeds as hateful, and Christ shares that judgment. Its wording places the rejection on their deeds; it gives no further description of the people or of those deeds.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the belief that rejecting a person’s deeds requires making the whole person the object of that rejection.
THE ROOT
ἔργα
erga
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
erg-
work or action carried out
“works” in this verse is erga. The Greek word belongs to a family centered on work and action, so the verse’s focus stays on what is done. Its grammar makes those deeds the object of the shared hatred, without extending this sentence into a judgment on every part of the people themselves.
ALSO GROWS
ergazomai: to work, do, or carry out
ἐργάζομαι
This related verb keeps the focus on enacted activity, clarifying that the verse names conduct.
ergatēs: worker or laborer
ἐργάτης
This word for someone who works shares the action-root, while the verse itself directs its judgment at the deeds.
μισεῖς
miseis
GROWS FROM
μισ-
mis-
hate or regard with aversion
“hatest” in this verse is miseis. This verb can be used with people as its object, but here its object is explicitly “the deeds.” The sentence’s wording therefore keeps the rejection attached to the actions it names.
ALSO GROWS
misos: hatred
μῖσος
This noun names the same family of aversion expressed by the verb in the verse.
misanthrōpos: a hater of people; a compound of “hate” and “person”
μισάνθρωπος
This wider Greek compound makes the verse’s chosen object stand out: it says “deeds,” not “people.”
THE PATTERN
Scripture can direct rejection toward evil and its work while keeping the object of that rejection specific.
I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the deed of those who turn aside; it shall not cling to me.You who love the LORD, hate evil. He guards the living souls of his faithful ones; he snatches them out of the hand of the wicked.Let love be without a mask. Recoil from what is evil; cling to what is good.THE THREAD
So you also have those who grip the teaching of the Nicolaitans in the same way.The same Greek hate-verb, μισέω (miseō), meaning “to hate,” appears in both verses. This one names the group’s deeds; the next connects the same group with the doctrine they hold, extending the passage’s focus without specifying those deeds.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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