What Does 1 Corinthians 6:16 Mean?
Or have you not seen that the one glued to a seller of bodies is one body? For, he says, the two will be one flesh.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.THE KEY
The force of “joined” is adhesion: the verse treats sexual union as a bond that makes two people one body.
THE MEANING
When you join sexually with a prostitute, the verse names the two of you as one body. It places that present union within the words “the two shall be one flesh,” describing a shared embodied bond that goes beyond the moment of contact.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a sexual encounter is only contact between separate bodies, with no bodily union between the people.
THE ROOT
κολλώμενος
kollōmenos
GROWS FROM
κολλ-
koll-
To glue, stick, or adhere; by extension, to join closely.
“glued” in this verse is kollōmenos. English “joined” can sound like mere association, but this verb carries the image of adhesion. The next verse uses the same form for the one joined to the Lord, showing the word’s force through the oneness that follows.
ALSO GROWS
kólla: Glue or adhesive.
κόλλα
The physical image behind the verb is something that sticks things together, illuminating the force of “joined.”
proskollaō: Join closely, adhere, or cleave.
προσκολλάω
This related form appears in the Greek wording of Genesis 2:24, the source of the “one flesh” phrase Paul quotes.
σάρκα
sarka
GROWS FROM
σαρκ-
sark-
Flesh; embodied human life.
“Flesh” can name more than skin: it holds bodily existence and human life together in one word. “One flesh” therefore names a shared embodied reality, giving depth to Paul’s description of “one body.”
ALSO GROWS
sarkinos: Fleshy, or made of flesh.
σάρκινος
This form keeps the root’s concrete bodily sense visible, rather than reducing flesh to an abstract idea.
sarkikos: Fleshly, or pertaining to flesh.
σαρκικός
This related form shows how the same root can describe what belongs to embodied human life.
THE PATTERN
Scripture describes joining as a bond that changes two into one shared reality.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.And the two will be one flesh, so they are no longer two, but one flesh.But the one glued to the Lord is one breath.THE THREAD
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.Genesis supplies the “two ... one flesh” line Paul quotes here. In the Greek Septuagint, “cleave” is προσκολλάω (proskollaō, “join closely”), sharing the κολλ- (koll-, “glue or adhere”) stem of “joined” in this verse; the quotation itself carries the image of adhesion.
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