Source Code

“You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews.” John 4:22 NASB

From – I recently received an email newsletter from a religious group.  Part of it struck me.  It read:

Centuries earlier, Martin Luther, still one of the most revered religious leaders of all time, had urged that “rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.” (page 269) He urged that “safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews.”  (page 270) He wrote that “if we wish to wash our hands of the Jews’ blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them.  They must be driven from our country… like mad dogs.” (page 292, Martin Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann, trans. Martin H. Bertram, vol. 47,  (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971)

    There is no record that Martin Luther ever spoke to any Jews or interacted with them in any way. The entirety of his antisemitism came from his theology. Even today, some people believe that following Jesus means that they should seek to destroy the Jewish people. They do not seem to know who Jesus is: he was born, lived, died, and will return as the King of the Jews. He proclaimed that “Salvation is of the Jews.” (Jn. 4:22) There will be some astonished people on that day when the God of Israel judges all the earth.[1]

You’ll notice that Mr. Gruber probably cites John 4:22 in the NKJV.  Virtually every other English translation reads “from the Jews.”  We might think there really isn’t any difference, but I’m not so sure.  “From” implies that salvation originated with the Jews and was subsequently moved someplace else.  I went from Orlando to Parma.  “From” looks back at a previous position which is no longer the present location.  Every English Bible that translates the Greek preposition ek as “from” suggests this transition.  But ek also means “of.”

90.16 ἐκ^f (with the genitive): a marker of the source of an activity or state, with the implication of something proceeding from or out of the source—‘from, by.’^[2]

In fact, like most Greek prepositions, ek can carry a very wide range of English translations:

1666 ἐκ (ek): prep.; ≡ Str 1537—1. LN 84.4 (always in the Genitive) out of, from, out from, extension from an area or space (Mt 16:1; Lk 23:55); 2. LN 89.25 because of; a marker of cause or reason for (Jn 6:66); 3. LN 89.77 by means of, from; a marker of means (Lk 8:3); 4. LN 90.12 with, as a result of; a marker of instrument, implying a result (Rev 3:18; 8:11); 5. LN 89.85 with, from; a marker of manner, often implying source (2Co 9:7); 6. LN 90.16 from, by; a marker of the source of a state or activity (Ro 9:10; 1Th 2:6; Rev 18:20); 7. LN 89.121 free from, from, apart from; a marker of dissociation (Jn 17:15; 1Co 9:19); 8. LN 89.3 from; a marker of the source or derivation of something (Lk 2:36; Jn 8:47; Ac 4:6); 9. LN 63.20 one of, one among, a part of; a marker of a part of the whole (Mt 26:73); 10. LN 68.54 from; a marker of cessation (Rev 14:13); 11. LN 67.33 when, at the time of; a marker relating points of time (Mt 26:44); 12. LN 67.131 since, from; marker of the extent of time from a point in the past (Jn 9:1); 13. LN 57.163 with, by means of; a marker of price (Mt 27:7); 14. LN 89.142 consisting of, of, made out of; a marker of the substance of something as an essence or a product (Mt 27:29), note: see LN index for a fuller treatment of the lexical units.^[3]

I trust you paid attention to the opening statement in Louw Nida, i.e., ek implies “something proceeding from or out of the source.”  This does not mean “from . . . to,” as a change in position.  It means where something originated, like the Genesis account of the woman who was “from” “of” the man.  Louw Nida goes on to show us all the possibilities of ek.

With all these choices, why do you suppose the vast majority of English Bibles chose “from”?  Do you think that they applied a hidden supersessionism to their translations?  If Yeshua really said that salvation belongs to (“of”) the Jews, what would that mean for Christianity’s claims?  There’s plenty of reason to use a preposition that implies “salvation” had moved to a new home, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason to claim that the Messiah said that.

Topical Index: of, from, ek, salvation, Jews, John 4:22

[1] Dan Gruber, Lion of Judah, newsletter September 2025

^[2] Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 798). United Bible Societies.

Str Strong’s Lexicon

LN Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon

LN Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon

^[3] Swanson, J. (1997). In Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.). Logos Research Systems, Inc.