What Does Revelation 21:25 Mean?
And its gates are never shut by day, for there is no night there.
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 the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.THE KEY
The gates stay open because the night that would call for them to close is gone.
THE MEANING
This verse presents wholeness as a place with no closing hour. There is no night there, so the gates never need to be shut against the darkness. The welcome is continuous.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that welcome is temporary and darkness must eventually bring a closed gate.
THE ROOT
κλεισθῶσιν
kleisthōsin
GROWS FROM
κλει-
klei-
To shut or close.
The Greek uses κλεισθῶσιν (kleisthōsin, be shut) with emphatic negation: the gates will certainly not be closed. The same verb appears when Revelation says no one can shut the open door; here, that openness extends to the whole city.
ALSO GROWS
kleís: A key, the means of opening or locking.
κλείς
A key joins opening and closing in one image of access. Revelation 3:7 uses this word for the key of David, the one who opens and no one shuts.
synkleíō: To close in, confine, or enclose.
συγκλείω
This related verb shows how the same word family can describe being enclosed; in this verse, the city’s gates remain beyond that closure.
THE PATTERN
Where divine welcome is unbroken, access has no closing hour and darkness does not set its limits.
Therefore your gates shall be open continually. They shall not be shut, day nor night, so that they may bring to you the strength of the nations, and their kings may be led in.I am the door. Through me, if anyone enters, he shall be delivered, and shall go in and out, and shall find pasture.And there will be no night there, and they have no need of lamp or light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine upon them, and they will reign to the ages of the ages.THE THREAD
I have seen your works. Look, I have set before your face an open door, which no one can shut. For you hold little strength, and you have guarded my word, and you have not disowned my name.Both verses use κλείω (kleíō, to shut): there, no one can shut the open door; here, the city’s gates are never shut. The image expands from an unclosable door to a whole city with no closing hour.
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