What Does 1 Corinthians 11:5 Mean in the King James?
But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Greek word for “uncovered” shares its root with “unveil”: the head’s exposure is part of what this prayer or prophecy communicates.
THE MEANING
When a woman prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, the verse says that this visible condition brings dishonor to her head, comparing it to being shaven. Her prayer or prophecy is embodied speech: what is visible on her head participates in the meaning carried by her words.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that spiritual speech makes bodily presentation irrelevant: here the visible head remains part of what the act communicates.
THE ROOT
ἀκατακαλύπτῳ
akatakalyptō
GROWS FROM
καλύπτω
kalyptō
to cover or conceal
“uncovered” in this verse is akatakalyptō. The word means not covered, built around the Greek verb for covering or concealing. Its word family also forms “uncover” and “veil,” holding both the covering and its removal within the same root.
ALSO GROWS
kalyptō: to cover, conceal
καλύπτω
This is the root beneath “uncovered”; the verse describes the head in relation to a covering.
apokalyptō: to uncover, reveal
ἀποκαλύπτω
The same root names the removal of a covering, linking exposure with unveiling.
kalymma: a veil, covering
κάλυμμα
This related word makes the image of a covering tangible and echoes the verse’s concern with what covers the head.
THE PATTERN
Prayer and prophecy are embodied speech: the body’s visible posture participates in what worship communicates.
Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.THE THREAD
But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.The Greek word for “vail” here shares the cover-root found in “uncovered” in 1 Corinthians 11:5. Here the covering also describes what obscures perception, opening the shared word-family toward images of what is covered or disclosed without making the passages say the same thing.
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