What Does 2 Corinthians 12:5 Mean?
Of such a man I will boast, yet of myself I will not boast, except in my weaknesses.
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
Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.THE KEY
The remarkable can be named without becoming the self’s claim; the self’s only boast is its weakness.
THE MEANING
You can recognize what is extraordinary without turning it into proof of your own greatness. The verse places boasting in weakness, where strength is no longer something the self can claim as its achievement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an extraordinary spiritual experience proves the self is superior.
THE ROOT
ἀσθενείαις
astheneiais
GROWS FROM
ἀσθεν-
asthen-
Without strength; weakness. The word is formed with a privative prefix, so infirmity names a lack of strength.
“weaknesses” in this verse is astheneiais. “Infirmities” carries more than illness: it belongs to a word family for being without strength. The verse makes that condition the speaker’s boast, so the claim rests precisely where self-sufficiency fails.
ALSO GROWS
asthenēs: Weak, without strength
ἀσθενής
The related adjective names a person as lacking strength, widening infirmity beyond a single illness.
astheneō: To be weak or ill
ἀσθενέω
The related verb makes weakness a condition one can inhabit, not merely a label for a failing body.
καυχήσομαι
kauchēs omai
GROWS FROM
καυχ-
kauch-
To boast, take pride in, or glory in.
The repeated verb keeps the verse focused on what can be claimed: first another person, then the self, whose only boast is infirmity. Here “glory” is a claim of pride, not an image of radiance.
ALSO GROWS
kauchesis: Boasting, the act of glorying
καύχησις
This noun names the act the verse repeats and redirects toward weakness.
kauchēma: A boast or ground for boasting
καύχημα
This branch points to the basis of a claim, sharpening the verse’s question of what the self can rightly claim.
THE PATTERN
When human strength cannot claim the credit, boasting moves to God or to the weakness that reveals dependence.
My living soul makes its boast in the LORD; the bowed ones hear it and are glad.But God picked out the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; and God picked out the weak things of the world to shame the strong.If boasting must be, I will boast of the things of my weakness.THE THREAD
And he said to me, "My favor is enough for you, for strength is carried to its end in weakness." Most gladly, then, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the strength of the Anointed One may pitch its tent over me.The Greek family ἀσθεν- (asthen-, “without strength”) appears here as “weakness” and in the current verse as “infirmities.” The next verse names where the boast rests: power reaches its fullness where the self’s strength is absent.
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