What Does Hebrews 13:4 Mean?
Marriage is precious among all, and the bed unstained, but God judges the sellers of bodies and the adulterers.
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
Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.THE KEY
The verse calls the marriage bed undefiled, locating the stain in sexual betrayal rather than in marital intimacy itself.
THE MEANING
Marriage carries honor, and its bed is undefiled. Sexual immorality and adultery remain under God’s judgment now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that marital intimacy is inherently contaminating, and it refuses the belief that adultery lies beyond God’s judgment.
THE ROOT
τίμιος
timios
GROWS FROM
τιμή
timē
value, worth, honor
τίμιος (timios, valuable or worthy of honor) names something of real worth, not merely a respectable status. Its word family also describes what is precious, so the verse presents marriage as something carrying weight and value.
ALSO GROWS
timē: value, worth, honor
τιμή
This noun makes clear that the verse’s honor language carries the sense of genuine worth.
timaō: to value, honor
τιμάω
The verb shows honor as recognizing worth, illuminating the regard the verse gives marriage.
ἀμίαντος
amiantos
GROWS FROM
μιαίνω
miainō
to stain, pollute; negated here by ἀ-
ἀμίαντος (amiantos, unstained or undefiled) places the marriage bed outside the category of stain. The word family also names staining and pollution, making the contrast tangible: intimacy within marriage is called undefiled, while sexual immorality and adultery face judgment.
ALSO GROWS
miainō: to stain, pollute, defile
μιαίνω
This verb names the stain that the adjective negates when it calls the bed undefiled.
miasma: stain, pollution, defilement
μίασμα
This related noun makes the word-family contrast visible: the bed is described as free from defilement.
THE PATTERN
Scripture frames marriage as a joining whose sexual fidelity and unity are protected.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.You shall not commit adultery.So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What God has yoked together, let no one pull apart.THE THREAD
but with the costly blood of the Anointed One, as of a lamb without blemish and without stain.The same Greek word family, τίμιος (timios, valuable or precious), describes marriage as “honourable” here and the blood as “precious” there. The shared wording reveals a language of worth without making the two things identical.
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