What Does 1 Corinthians 11:8 Mean in the King James?

For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.

1 Corinthians 11:8 · KJV

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 translated “of” means “out from”: it names the woman’s source, while the next verse traces all things to God.

THE MEANING

Your life is received through other lives; no human being is its first source. This origin sits within a larger pattern in which men and women depend on one another and all things come from God.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that being another’s source makes someone greater or self-sufficient falls away: the next verse says the man also comes through woman, and all things are of God.

THE ROOT

ἐκ

GROWS FROM

ἐκ

From, out of; marking source or origin.

In both “not of the woman” and “the woman of the man,” ⁨ἐκ⁩ (appearing as ⁨ἐξ⁩ before a vowel) marks where someone comes from. English “of” can hide this sense of origin: the verse describes a source, not by itself a measure of worth.

ALSO GROWS

ekballō: Cast or drive out.

ἐκβάλλω

This compound keeps ⁨ἐκ⁩’s sense of movement outward, making the source-direction in the verse easier to hear.

ekporeuomai: Go out, proceed.

ἐκπορεύομαι

Here too, ⁨ἐκ⁩ marks movement from a point of origin, the same relation named in the verse.

THE PATTERN

Scripture traces human life through one another while tracing all things back to God.

And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Genesis 2:22 · KJVThe woman’s formation is described as coming from the man, echoing the source relation named in 1 Corinthians 11:8.

For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.

1 Corinthians 11:12 · KJVThe verse completes the relation with mutual dependence and names God as the source of all things.

For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Romans 11:36 · KJVThe source pattern expands beyond human life: all things come from God, move through God, and return to God.

THE THREAD

For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.

1 Corinthians 11:12 · KJV

The same Greek preposition, ⁨ἐκ⁩ (“from, out of”), links the woman’s origin from the man with all things’ origin from God. The next clause completes the picture: the man also comes through the woman.

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