What Does 1 Corinthians 7:14 Mean?
For the husband who does not trust has been set apart through the wife, and the wife who does not trust has been set apart through the husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are set apart.
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
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.THE KEY
Holiness crosses the marriage bond without erasing the unbelieving spouse’s unbelief.
THE MEANING
The marriage is described as a sphere of set-apartness: the trusting spouse’s bond with the spouse who does not trust is called sanctifying. Their children are not described as unclean but as holy. The verse holds these states together without saying that everyone in the household has the same trust.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An unbelieving spouse makes the marriage spiritually defiling and the children unclean; the verse describes the household instead as set apart.
THE ROOT
ἡγίασται
hēgiastai
GROWS FROM
ἁγ- / ἁγι- (hag- / hagi-)
The shared Greek word family carries the sense of setting apart or consecrating.
“has been set apart” in this verse is hēgiastai. English uses “sanctified” for the spouse and “holy” for the children, but Greek links both through the ἁγ- word family: ἁγιάζω (hagiazo, set apart) and ἅγιος (hagios, holy or set apart). The same set-apart relation is named across the household.
ALSO GROWS
holy: Holy; set apart.
ἅγια
The verse uses this related form for the children, connecting their status directly to the spouse being sanctified.
sanctify: To set apart; to consecrate.
ἁγιάζω
This is the verb behind “is sanctified,” showing that the verse speaks of a set-apart relation, not the spouse becoming a believer.
ἄπιστος
apistos
GROWS FROM
πιστ-
pist-
Trust: placing confidence or leaning one’s full weight on something.
“who does not trust” in this verse is apistos. The prefix a- negates the trust-family: the spouse is described as not trusting, yet is also described as sanctified through the marriage bond. The verse keeps these descriptions distinct and present together.
ALSO GROWS
trust: Trust; reliance, leaning one’s full weight.
πίστις
This is the trust named as absent in “unbelieving,” clarifying that set-apartness does not mean both spouses share the same trust.
pistos: Firm; steady; trustworthy.
πιστός
This related word shows the broader trust-family behind the description of the spouse as ἄπιστος (apistos, without trust).
THE PATTERN
Set-apartness can mark a whole people or household through a shared relation without describing every member’s identical trust.
And if the first portion is set apart, so is the lump. And if the root is set apart, so are the branches.And you shall be to me a governance of priests and a set-apart nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.But you are a chosen lineage, a royal priesthood, a set-apart nation, a people made his own, so that you may tell out the excellences of the one who called you out of darkness into his wondrous light.THE THREAD
And if the first portion is set apart, so is the lump. And if the root is set apart, so are the branches.The same Greek word family, ἅγιος (hagios, holy or set apart), links this verse’s “sanctified” and “holy” to Romans’ “holy.” Romans gives two pictures of a set-apart part marking a larger whole, opening the household relation in 1 Corinthians without equating the family members’ trust.
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