What Does Revelation 21:1 Mean?
And I perceive a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have gone away, and there is no more sea.
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
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.THE KEY
The new world is defined by absence as much as arrival: the old order passes, and even the sea is no more.
THE MEANING
This vision speaks now of a world whose former frame is no longer final: the first heaven and earth pass away, and the sea is no more. Wholeness appears as a changed order from which what once held the horizon has been removed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the present order is permanent, so renewal can only mean improving it from within, dissolves here.
THE ROOT
καινὸν
kainon
GROWS FROM
καιν-
kain-
New or fresh, often with emphasis on quality or condition.
The word’s family includes newness and inauguration, so this is more than something recently made: it is a changed condition opening across creation. The old order’s departure and the sea’s absence make this renewal subtractive as well as new.
ALSO GROWS
kainotēs: newness
καινότης
Romans 6:4 uses this word for “newness of life,” showing that this kind of newness can describe a lived condition as well as a cosmic one.
enkainizō: inaugurate, dedicate, or bring into use as new
ἐγκαινίζω
This related word joins newness with inauguration, illuminating the new heavens and earth as an opened order.
ἀπῆλθαν
apēlthan
GROWS FROM
ἔρχομαι
erchomai
Come or go.
“were passed away” in this verse is apēlthan. The Greek verb pictures the former heaven and earth going away. Its root also forms words for entering and going out, giving the verse a sense of transition: the former order departs as a new one is named.
ALSO GROWS
aperchomai: go away, depart
ἀπέρχομαι
This is the verb behind “were passed away,” making departure the action of the former order.
eiserchomai: enter, go in
εἰσέρχομαι
The same root can describe entering, giving the departure a place within a larger movement into a new condition.
THE PATTERN
Renewal is the emergence of a new order in which the former condition no longer governs what is possible.
For behold, I have created new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered, nor will they rise upon the heart.But we, according to his promise, look toward new heavens and a new earth, where alignment settles.So if anyone is in the Anointed One, he is a new creation. What was old has passed by. Look, all things have become new.THE THREAD
So if anyone is in the Anointed One, he is a new creation. What was old has passed by. Look, all things have become new.The Greek word for “new” here, καινός (kainos), is also used in “a new creature.” That shared root carries the cosmic vision into the reader’s life: newness names a changed condition in which the former order no longer defines the present.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us