What Does 1 Corinthians 7:2 Mean?
But because of sexual wandering, let each man hold his own wife, and each woman hold her own husband.
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
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.THE KEY
The same Greek verb governs both halves, making reciprocity part of the verse’s grammar.
THE MEANING
Here, sexual immorality is named as a live pressure; the verse answers by setting each man with his own wife and each woman with her own husband. Both clauses use the same verb, giving the relation a mirrored form. The verse speaks directly about sexual conduct and makes both partners visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that sexual responsibility belongs only to the man: the woman’s side receives a matching clause and the same verb.
THE ROOT
ἐχέτω
echetō
GROWS FROM
ἔχω
echō
have, hold, keep
“hold” in this verse is echetō. The form ἐχέτω (echetō, “let ... have”) appears in both halves. The repeated verb makes each partner’s place in the sentence parallel, a detail easy to pass over in English.
ALSO GROWS
katechō: hold fast, retain
κατέχω
This related word carries the sense of continued holding, adding a shade of ongoing relation to “have.”
synechō: hold together, constrain
συνέχω
The same word family can describe holding together, echoing the verse’s paired structure.
πορνείας
porneias
GROWS FROM
πορν-
porn-
the word family for prostitution and sexual immorality
“sexual wandering” in this verse is porneias. The Greek form is plural πορνείας (porneias, “sexual immoralities”), while the KJV uses the singular “fornication.” The word family names both sexual misconduct and a person associated with it, keeping the verse’s stated pressure concrete.
ALSO GROWS
porneuō: practice sexual immorality
πορνεύω
This verb names the conduct that the verse sets beside the marriage bond.
pornos: sexually immoral person
πόρνος
This related noun names a person by the conduct named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places sexual union within a defined bond and treats that bond as a shared union.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What God has yoked together, let no one pull apart.Marriage is precious among all, and the bed unstained, but God judges the sellers of bodies and the adulterers.THE THREAD
Let the husband give to the wife what is owed in goodwill, and likewise the wife to the husband.The same Greek words γυνή (gynē, “woman/wife”) and ἀνήρ (anēr, “man/husband”) return. The next verse makes the reciprocity explicit with “and likewise also the wife,” opening the matched clauses here into mutual responsibility.
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