What Does 1 Corinthians 7:39 Mean?
A wife is bound by the instruction while her husband lives, but if her husband has fallen asleep, she is free to marry whom she wills, only in the Lord.
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
The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.THE KEY
The bond lasts for the span of her husband’s life; his death releases her, while “only in the Lord” still frames her choice.
THE MEANING
The marriage bond holds while her husband lives. When he dies, she is free to marry whom she wills, with the stated boundary, “only in the Lord.” The verse names both the bond and the point at which it releases her.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a wife remains bound to the same marriage after her husband dies.
THE ROOT
δέδεται
dedetai
GROWS FROM
δέω
deō
to bind or tie
“bound” in this verse is dedetai. The Greek verb means to bind, making the marriage bond more than a vague attachment: it is a binding that holds for a stated span. The verse itself names that span, “as long as her husband liveth”, and then describes her as free when he dies.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: bond, tie, or chain
δεσμός
This related noun makes the binding image concrete: the wife’s bond has a defined duration.
desmeuō: to bind or hold captive
δεσμεύω
This related verb echoes the force of being bound, while the verse specifies when that hold ends.
κοιμηθῇ
koimēthē
GROWS FROM
κοιμάω
koimaō
to fall asleep; also used of dying
“has fallen asleep” in this verse is koimēthē. The word rendered “dead” comes from a verb meaning “to fall asleep,” a familiar Greek image for death. That image sits beside the verse’s direct legal language: death is the event that ends the bond and opens the way to remarriage.
ALSO GROWS
koimaomai: to fall asleep; to die
κοιμάομαι
This is the verb’s middle form and preserves the sleep image behind the verse’s word for death.
koimētērion: sleeping place; cemetery
κοιμητήριον
The related word for a burial place carries the same sleep image into the language of death.
ἐλευθέρα
eleuthera
GROWS FROM
ἐλευθερ-
eleuther-
free; not bound
The verse pairs binding with explicit freedom: after her husband dies, she is free to marry whom she wills. The Greek word makes that release plain, while “only in the Lord” remains the stated boundary on her freedom.
ALSO GROWS
eleutheroō: to set free
ἐλευθερόω
This related verb names the act of freeing, illuminating the change in her status after her husband’s death.
eleutheria: freedom or liberty
ἐλευθερία
This related noun gives a name to the freedom the verse says she has.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents marriage as a bond whose force is real and whose duration is bounded by the life of the spouse.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.What therefore God has yoked together, let no human pull apart.For a woman who has a husband is bound by the instruction to her husband for as long as he lives. But if the husband has died, she is released from the instruction of her husband.THE THREAD
For a woman who has a husband is bound by the instruction to her husband for as long as he lives. But if the husband has died, she is released from the instruction of her husband.Romans 7:2 uses the same Greek binding verb, δέω (deō), and pairs it with release when the husband dies. The shared root makes the bond and its limit especially clear: the binding lasts while he lives, then the woman is loosed.
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