How to write an exegesis

Part I

What exegesis is

Exegesis means drawing out what a passage says. The opposite is reading your own ideas into it.

Exegesis (say EK-suh-JEE-sis) is “an explanation or critical interpretation of a text.” The word comes from Greek.
Eisegesis (say EYE-suh-JEE-sis) is “the interpretation of a text (as of the Bible) by reading into it one’s own ideas.” Exegesis asks what the passage meant to the people it was first written for, before it asks what it means for us.
The Greek word in the Bible. The verb behind the word is exegeomai, Strong’s G1834: “to consider out (aloud), i.e. rehearse, unfold.” It is in John 1:18, where the ASV prints “he hath declared him.” Open John 1:18
Sources: Merriam-Webster, “exegesis” and “eisegesis”; Strong’s Concordance, G1834, as given on Bible Hub (all checked 8 October 2026).

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Part II

The seven steps

Do them in order. Each step uses a part of Open Scroll. Write what you find as you go.

1
Mark the passage
Choose a short passage with a clear start and end, such as one psalm or one story. Read the verses just before and after your first choice to find where the thought really begins and ends.
Ask
- Where does the subject change, or a new speaker begin?
- Does the passage start with “and”, “therefore” or “for”? Then it leans on the verses before it.
- Is the passage short enough to read three times in one sitting?
Watch outStopping where the chapter stops. The chapter and verse numbers were added long after the Bible was written, so a thought can run across a chapter break. See Chapters & verses.
Chapters & verses
See step 1 done for Psalm 1
2
Read it in several Bibles
Read the passage in two or three reading Bibles. Write down every place where they use different words, and ask why they differ.
Ask
- Do the Bibles use different words for the same thing (blessed, happy)?
- Does one Bible have words, or a whole line, that another does not?
- Is the difference only in English, or does it come from a different old copy, such as the Septuagint or a Dead Sea Scroll?
Watch outChoosing the Bible whose wording you like best. Write down every reading, then let steps 3 to 6 decide which one fits the passage.
ASV KJV JPS Tanakh Septuagint Douay-Rheims
See step 2 done for Psalm 1
3
Look at the key words
Open the chapter page and read the word cards for the main words. Write down what each word means, then find two other verses where the same word is used and see how it is used there.
Ask
- Which words carry the passage? Look for repeated words and for words you cannot explain.
- What does the word card give as its meaning?
- How is the same word used in two other verses? Does that use fit here?
Watch outThree mistakes named by D. A. Carson. Building a meaning from a word’s parts (the root fallacy). Reading a later meaning back into an older word (semantic anachronism). Loading every meaning a word can have into one use of it (illegitimate totality transfer). One example Carson gives: the claim that the word for “ministers” in 1 Corinthians 4:1 means an under-rower on a ship, built from the word’s parts. A word means what it means in its own sentence.
Word cards Old Testament New Testament
See step 3 done for Psalm 1
4
Know what kind of writing it is
Decide what kind of writing the passage is: a story, a law, a poem or song, a prophecy, or a letter. Each kind is read in its own way.
Ask
- Is it told in order, like a story: this happened, then that?
- Are the lines in pairs or groups, with pictures, like a poem?
- Does it give commands? Who is speaking, and to whom?
Watch outReading one kind as if it were another. A picture in a poem (a tree, chaff) is a picture, not a report. A story tells what someone did; it does not by itself say that everyone should do the same.
Books of the Bible
See step 4 done for Psalm 1
5
Read what comes before and after
Read the whole chapter, and the chapters before and after it. Ask how the passage fits the book.
Ask
- What happens, or is said, just before the passage?
- Does the same word or idea come back nearby?
- What would be lost if the passage were taken out of the book?
Watch outTaking one verse out of its paragraph to prove a point. Read the verse in its paragraph before you quote it.
See step 5 done for Psalm 1
6
Know the setting
Find who wrote it, to whom, where, and when. Use only what the Bible itself says, and say so when it does not tell you.
Ask
- Does the book or the passage name its writer?
- Does it name a place, a king, a feast or a year?
- Who were the first hearers, and what did they already know?
Watch outFilling the silence with a guess. If the Bible does not say who wrote a passage, or when, write “not given”.
Bible Maps Hebrew Calendar B.C. and A.D. dates
See step 6 done for Psalm 1
7
Write it down
In one to three sentences, write what the passage meant to its first hearers. Use the passage’s own words where you can.
Ask
- Does every sentence come from steps 1 to 6?
- Could you point to the verse for each sentence?
- Would the first hearers have understood it this way?
Watch outWriting what you hoped the passage would say. Check each sentence against the text: if the passage does not say it, take it out. What it means for you goes in box 8, not here.
See step 7 done for Psalm 1

A fuller method. Seminary handbooks add more steps, such as the grammar of the Hebrew or Greek and the study of old copies of the text. One is Gordon D. Fee, New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors, third edition (Westminster John Knox, 2002). Its steps include the structure of the passage, establishing the text, grammar, words, and the historical and cultural background. The seven steps here are a short form for reading on your own.
Sources for the warnings and the kinds of writing: D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, second edition (Baker, 1996), on the root fallacy, semantic anachronism (“a late use of a word is read back into earlier literature”) and illegitimate totality transfer, as described in reviews by 9Marks and Reformed Baptist Seminary; Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, fourth edition (Zondervan, 2014), which treats the different kinds of biblical writing (all checked 8 October 2026).
Old copies of the text: see The Dead Sea Scrolls, Part III, for three places where old copies differ.

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Part III

Worked example: Psalm 1

The seven steps, done for Psalm 1. Open it beside this page.

Psalm 1, word by word JPS Tanakh Septuagint

1
Mark the passage
Psalm 1, verses 1 to 6. It is the first psalm in the book. Psalm 2 begins a new subject: “Why do the nations rage”.
2
Read it in several Bibles
Verse 1: the ASV and Brenton’s Septuagint read “Blessed is the man”. The JPS Tanakh reads “Happy is the man”. Verse 6: the ASV reads “Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous”; the JPS reads “the LORD regardeth the way of the righteous”. Question to take to step 3: why “blessed” in one Bible and “happy” in another?
3
Look at the key words
Blessed: esher, Strong’s H835, “happiness, blessedness”. That is why some Bibles print “blessed” and others “happy”. Law: torah, H8451, “a precept or statute”. Meditate: hagah, H1897, “to murmur”, and so “to ponder”. The same word is in Joshua 1:8, “thou shalt meditate thereon day and night”, and in Psalm 2:1, “the peoples meditate a vain thing”.
4
Know what kind of writing it is
A poem. Its lines come in groups: “walketh not … Nor standeth … Nor sitteth” (verse 1). It uses pictures: a tree planted by streams of water (verse 3) and chaff that the wind drives away (verse 4).
5
Read what comes before and after
Nothing comes before it in the book of Psalms. After it, Psalm 2:1 uses the same word, meditate: one man meditates on the law of Jehovah day and night (1:2); the peoples meditate a vain thing (2:1).
6
Know the setting
Psalm 1 has no heading. It does not name its writer or say when it was written, so the exegesis should not guess. Joshua 1:8, earlier in the Bible, gives the same charge: meditate on the law day and night.
7
Write it down
Psalm 1 sets two ways side by side. The man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, and whose delight is in the law of Jehovah, on which he meditates day and night, is like a tree planted by the streams of water. The wicked are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Verse 6 gives the reason: “Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous; But the way of the wicked shall perish.”

Sources: Psalm 1, Psalm 2:1 and Joshua 1:8 in the ASV (1901); Psalm 1 in the JPS Tanakh (1917) and Brenton’s Septuagint (1851), read on eBible.org; Strong’s H835, H8451 and H1897, as given on Bible Hub, which also lists Joshua 1:8, Psalm 1:2 and Psalm 2:1 as places the word hagah is used (all checked 8 October 2026).

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Part IV

Your page to copy

Copy these boxes onto a sheet of paper, one sheet for each passage. Box 8 is yours alone: this page gives no answer for it.

1. The passageBook, chapter, first verse to last verse.

2. Where the Bibles differThe verse, and the words each Bible uses.

3. Key wordsThe word, its number, what it means, and two other verses that use it.

4. Kind of writingStory, law, poem or song, prophecy, or letter. How you can tell.

5. Before and afterWhat the verses around it say, and how they connect.

6. SettingWho, to whom, where, when. Only what the Bible says.

7. What it meant thenOne to three sentences, in the passage’s own words where you can.

8. What it means for meYour own words, after steps 1 to 7.

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How to write an exegesis

What exegesis is

The seven steps

Mark the passage

Read it in several Bibles

Look at the key words

Know what kind of writing it is

Read what comes before and after

Know the setting

Write it down

Worked example: Psalm 1

Mark the passage

Read it in several Bibles

Look at the key words

Know what kind of writing it is

Read what comes before and after

Know the setting

Write it down

Your page to copy