Exegesis

Exegesis is the practice of interpreting a text in order to clarify what its author sought to communicate to the original audience. It works through close reading, paying attention to language, structure, context, and literary form. Exegesis treats the text as a product of intentional communication and asks how its words and arrangement convey meaning. By grounding interpretation in the text itself, exegesis aims to explain how meaning is produced rather than to reshape the text according to later beliefs or concerns. It is used to reduce ambiguity and to make interpretation accountable to the text’s own features.