Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
John 13:1
He loved them unto the end. To the finish, or to the utmost.
John 13:1, in every translation this tool compares.
She went to the end. Until it was over, or as far as anyone could go? English has the same double meaning and usually leaves you to work it out from context. Here the context does not settle it.
Because the phrase opens the second half of the Gospel and sets the tone for everything after it, and it can mean a limit of time or a limit of degree. The chapter that follows is built on whichever one you pick.
having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.
The King James and ESV read to the end. The NIV reads the full extent of his love. The NASB reads to the end and footnotes perfectly.
εἰς τέλος eis telos · G5056
Eis telos can be temporal, to the last, or intensive, completely, utterly. Telos itself means both a finish and a goal, which is the same range that makes Romans 10:4 an argument.
English end carries both, but the phrase to the end has hardened into the temporal sense, so a reader gets one of the two for free and never sees the other.
When you meet a word twice in a tool, the second meeting is the test. You already know telos splits between finish and goal. Watch it split again here.
Temporal fits the narrative, which is moving toward the cross. Intensive fits the foot-washing that immediately follows, which is an act of love taken to its limit. Both are defensible and the Greek allows either.
- eis telos temporal: Matthew 10:22; Mark 13:13
- eis telos intensive: Luke 18:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:16
- The foot-washing in John 13:2-17 is the immediate context
