What Does Revelation 7:13 Mean?
And one of the elders answers, saying to me, Who are these wrapped in white robes, and from where have they come?
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 one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?THE KEY
The robes are cast around them, but the elder’s question reaches past the covering to the source of their arrival.
THE MEANING
You encounter the white covering before you know its wearers’ story. The elder’s two questions hold appearance and origin together: what these people are, and where they come from. The robe marks them, but the scene leaves its source to be disclosed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a person’s visible condition tells the whole story of where they come from: the robes can be seen before their origin is known.
THE ROOT
περιβεβλημένοι
peribeblēmenoi
GROWS FROM
βάλλω
ballō
To throw or cast; with περί (peri, around), the compound means to cast around, wrap, or clothe.
“wrapped” in this verse is peribeblēmenoi. The word translated “arrayed” is a form of περιβάλλω, carrying the image of something cast around the wearers. The covering is visible, but the elder’s question reaches beyond it to ask where they came from.
ALSO GROWS
epiballō: To throw or lay upon.
ἐπιβάλλω
This compound shows the same root placing something upon a person; here the covering is cast around them.
amphiballō: To cast around, as with a net.
ἀμφιβάλλω
The root can describe something surrounding what it encloses, echoing the robes’ visible encircling of the wearers.
THE PATTERN
A garment can make a changed condition visible while the story of its source remains to be disclosed.
And he answered and said to those standing before him, Lift the soiled garments off him. And to him he said, Look, I have caused your crookedness to cross over from you, and I will clothe you with a change of garments.I will exult greatly in the LORD; my living soul shall leap in my God; for he has clothed me in garments of deliverance, he has wrapped me in the robe of alignment, as a bridegroom dons a headdress, and as a bride binds on her jewels.For as many of you as have been immersed into the Anointed One have put on the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And I say to him, My lord, you know. And he says to me, These are the ones who come out of the great pressure, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.The next verse answers both questions: these people come out of great tribulation, and their robes are washed white in the Lamb’s blood. What verse 13 leaves as a visible covering and an unknown origin, verse 14 opens as a story of arrival and washing.
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