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 2:19
Destroy this temple. Greek has two words for temple and this is the inner one.
John 2:19, in every translation this tool compares.
The house and the grounds. If someone says tear down the house, nobody thinks he means the estate. One word for both and the sentence gets much harder.
Because the accusation at the trial turns on this saying, and the word Jesus uses is not the word for the temple complex. English prints temple for both and the distinction disappears.
Every version reads temple for both Greek words.
ναός naos · G3485 / ἱερόν hieron · G2411
Naos is the sanctuary proper, the inner building. Hieron is the whole temple precinct including the courts. Verse 14 has Jesus in the hieron; verse 19 has him saying destroy this naos. John then tells you in verse 21 that he meant his body.
English has one word, so the shift from precinct to sanctuary inside five verses cannot be seen.
Where Greek has two words for one English word, watch for a passage that uses both. The switch is usually doing the work.
Temple is universal for both. Some study Bibles note the distinction; no translation marks it.
- hieron at John 2:14; naos at 2:19-21
- The accusation at Mark 14:58 uses naos
- Paul uses naos of believers: 1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19
