What Does 2 Corinthians 11:20 Mean?
For you bear it if anyone enslaves you, if anyone eats you up, if anyone takes hold of you, if anyone lifts himself up, if anyone strikes you on the face.
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 ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face.THE KEY
The verse’s startling word is “suffer”: it frames enslavement, consumption, taking, self-exaltation, and a blow as things you endure.
THE MEANING
You are pictured enduring a sequence that strips away freedom and dignity: another makes you captive, consumes you, takes from you, raises himself above you, and strikes your face. The verse names this sequence as domination even as you bear it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that what you can endure must be harmless; the list names tolerated treatment as enslavement, consumption, appropriation, and bodily violence.
THE ROOT
ἀνέχεσθε
anechesthe
GROWS FROM
ἔχω (echō), in ἀνέχομαι (anechomai)
ἔχω (echō) means “have” or “hold”; ἀνέχομαι (anechomai) means “bear,” “endure,” or “put up with.”
“bear it” in this verse is anechesthe. “Suffer” here carries the sense of bearing with or tolerating what follows. That makes the verse’s tension plain: the conditions are degrading and violent, yet they are endured.
ALSO GROWS
echō: have, hold
ἔχω
This basic verb gives the image of holding or bearing that remains inside “endure.”
anochē: forbearance, tolerance
ἀνοχή
This related noun names the state of bearing with something, echoing the verse’s focus on what is tolerated.
καταδουλοῖ
katadouloi
GROWS FROM
δοῦλος (doulos) / δουλόω (douloō)
δοῦλος (doulos) means “servant”; δουλόω (douloō) means “make a servant” or “enslave.” The compound καταδουλόω (katadouloō) means “enslave” or “bring into bondage.”
“enslaves you” in this verse is katadouloi. The word describes a person being brought under another’s control, reduced to the status of a servant. Its same compound appears in Galatians 2:4, where people seek to bring others into bondage.
ALSO GROWS
doulos: servant
δοῦλος
The noun names the person whom the verb’s action makes subject to another.
douleuō: serve, be a servant
δουλεύω
This related verb carries the same root into the ongoing condition of service.
katadouloō: enslave, bring into bondage
καταδουλόω
This compound names the coercive condition the verse places first in its list.
THE PATTERN
Domination reduces people to objects for service, control, consumption, or harm.
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with crushing.He will take the tenth of your flocks; and you shall be his servants.But Jesus called them to him, and said, You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and the great ones press authority down upon them.THE THREAD
And this because of false brothers smuggled in, who slipped in alongside to spy out the freedom we hold in Jesus the Anointed One, so that they might enslave us.“Bring us into bondage” uses the same Greek compound καταδουλόω (katadouloō, “enslave” or “bring into bondage”) as “bring you into bondage” here. In both verses, bondage names an attempt to pull people under another’s control.
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