What Does Revelation 5:9 Mean?
And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to untie its seals, for you were slaughtered and bought us for God with your blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
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 they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;THE KEY
The Lamb’s worth is revealed in a purchase that gathers people across every human boundary into belonging to God.
THE MEANING
The verse places the reader inside a song where the slain Lamb is worthy because his blood purchases people for God from every kinship, language, people, and nation. The song holds both release from former belonging and arrival into belonging to God. Its “us” reaches across the boundaries named in the verse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that belonging to God is fenced by one lineage, language, people, or nation: the song names people from every one of them as part of its “us.”
THE ROOT
ἠγόρασας
ēgorasas
GROWS FROM
ἀγοράζω (agorázō), from ἀγορά (agorá)
To buy in the marketplace; to acquire by purchase.
“bought” in this verse is ēgorasas. The verb carries the concrete image of buying, so redemption here is pictured as a costly purchase with a destination: “to God.” Its branches hold purchase and release together, the purchased ones are brought into belonging to God.
ALSO GROWS
agorá: A public marketplace.
ἀγορά
The source noun keeps the purchase image concrete: the verse’s redemption language carries an exchange and a new belonging.
exagorázō: To buy out or redeem.
ἐξαγοράζω
This related verb makes the release dimension visible while retaining the shared language of purchase.
THE PATTERN
God’s gathering widens past inherited boundaries, bringing distinct peoples into shared belonging.
And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the ground will be blessed.Them also will I bring to my set-apart mountain, and gladden them in my house of prayer. Their ascending offerings and their sacrifices shall be received with favor upon my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither servant nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
For you were bought in the marketplace for a price; so give weight to God in your body, and in your breath, which are God's.The same verb, ἠγοράσθητε (ēgorasthēte, “you were bought”), appears here as “bought,” from ἀγοράζω (agorázō, “to purchase”). Revelation names the destination of that purchase, “to God”, and this verse describes the body and spirit as belonging to God.
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