What Does Revelation 22:2 Mean?
In the middle of its broad way, and on either bank of the river, is the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, giving back its fruit with each moon. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
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
In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.THE KEY
The tree’s life reaches beyond its fruit: even its leaves carry care for the nations.
THE MEANING
Life stands at the center and beside the river, continually bearing fruit while its leaves bring healing to the nations. Provision and restoration reach whole peoples here, not only individuals.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that whole peoples are beyond healing is undone here: the tree’s leaves are for the healing of the nations.
THE ROOT
θεραπεία
therapeia
GROWS FROM
θεραπευ-
The Greek word family carries the sense of attending to, caring for, and treating.
The word belongs to a family for attending and treating, so healing here carries the shade of care rendered. That care flows through the tree’s leaves to the nations.
ALSO GROWS
therapeuō: to attend to, serve, or heal
θεραπεύω
It shares the stem and shows healing as a form of attentive care.
therapeutēs: an attendant or healer
θεραπευτής
This branch makes visible the one who attends to another’s need, echoing the care the leaves bring.
THE PATTERN
Life’s provision continues, and its fruit extends into restoration.
And upon the river, upon its lip, on this side and on that, every tree for food shall rise up. Its leaf shall not wilt, and its fruit shall not be used up. It shall bear early fruit month by month, because the waters go out from the set-apart place. Its fruit shall be for food, and its leaf for healing.And out of the ground the LORD God caused to sprout every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowing good and evil.Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me shall never hunger, and the one who leans their full weight into me shall never thirst.THE THREAD
And upon the river, upon its lip, on this side and on that, every tree for food shall rise up. Its leaf shall not wilt, and its fruit shall not be used up. It shall bear early fruit month by month, because the waters go out from the set-apart place. Its fruit shall be for food, and its leaf for healing.Ezekiel pictures trees on both banks of a river whose monthly fruit feeds and whose leaves are medicine. Revelation 22:2 carries the same pattern into a vision where the leaves are for the nations’ healing.
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