What Does 1 Corinthians 13:8 Mean in the King James?
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
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 word translated “faileth” pictures falling: love never falls, even as prophecy and knowledge are brought to an end and tongues cease.
THE MEANING
Love remains when ways of speaking, perceiving, and understanding reach their limit. Prophecy and knowledge are brought to an end, and tongues cease; each is real, but none is permanent. Love endures beyond them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that spiritual insight or eloquence is what lasts most is undone here: prophecy, tongues, and knowledge end, while love remains.
THE ROOT
πίπτει
piptei
GROWS FROM
πιπτ- (πίπτω, piptō)
To fall or drop.
The Greek verb gives “faileth” the image of falling. Love does not collapse or fall away; the verse sets it apart from capacities that reach their end.
ALSO GROWS
ekpiptō: To fall away or drop off.
ἐκπίπτω
This is the same fall-family used of the flower that falls away in 1 Peter 1:24, making the contrast with love visible.
prospiptō: To fall upon or fall before.
προσπίπτω
The same root can describe falling toward another; here, the verb is denied to love, which does not fall.
γνῶσις
gnōsis
GROWS FROM
γινωσκ- (ginōsk-, from γινώσκω, ginōskō)
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“knowledge” in this verse is gnōsis. This is the knowing-family of γινώσκω (ginōskō): knowing and perceiving by encounter, not merely holding information. Even this kind of knowing has a limit; the verse names that limit without diminishing its present value.
ALSO GROWS
ginōskō: To know or perceive.
γινώσκω
The related verb makes clear that knowledge here belongs to the act of knowing, not simply to a store of facts.
epignōsis: Recognition or knowledge.
ἐπίγνωσις
This related form keeps the same knowing-root: even recognition belongs to what has an end in this verse.
THE PATTERN
Love is the enduring reality that remains when other forms of speech, insight, and splendor pass.
O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.THE THREAD
For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:Peter’s “falleth away” uses ἐκπίπτω (ekpiptō), from the same Greek fall-family as “faileth” here, πίπτω (piptō). The flower falls away; love does not fall, so the shared root makes the contrast tangible.
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