What Does 1 Corinthians 15:34 Mean in the King James?
Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.
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
To “awake” here is to recover sober clarity, because the verse links missing the mark with not truly knowing God.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you now as a call to come to your senses and live in alignment, where what misses the mark is no longer mistaken for clear sight. It names not knowing God as a present condition and lets the rebuke land plainly: this ignorance carries shame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that ignorance of God is neutral; it treats that absence of knowing as a blindness that shows itself in a life that misses the mark.
THE ROOT
ἐκνήψατε
eknēpsate
GROWS FROM
νήφω
nēphō
Be sober, clearheaded.
“Awake” in this verse is eknēpsate. The Greek verb means to sober up or come to one’s senses, so the awakening is a break from dullness into clear perception. Joined to the call to alignment, it suggests that missing the mark belongs to a state of obscured sight.
ALSO GROWS
nēphō: Be sober, be clearheaded.
νήφω
This related verb makes clear that the verse’s awakening involves recovering sound perception.
nēphalios: Sober, temperate.
νηφάλιος
This branch describes an ongoing clearheaded state, extending the image beyond a moment of waking.
δικαίως
dikaiōs
GROWS FROM
δικαιο- (dikaio-), from δίκη (dikē)
Rightness, justice, right order.
“Righteousness” in this verse is dikaiōs. The Greek form here is an adverb: “rightly” or “in an aligned way.” The verse joins coming to one’s senses with restored orientation, so wakefulness is more than alertness, it is seeing and living in alignment.
ALSO GROWS
dikaiosynē: Righteousness, alignment.
δικαιοσύνη
This noun names the alignment that the verse’s adverb calls a way of being.
dikaios: Just, aligned.
δίκαιος
This related word describes a person whose life is ordered in keeping with what is right.
ἀγνωσία
agnōsia
GROWS FROM
γνῶ- (gnō-), from γινώσκω (ginōskō)
Know or perceive through encounter; ἀγνωσία is the absence of knowing.
“Knowledge” in this verse is agnōsia. The verse calls the condition ἀγνωσία, a lack of knowing God. Its word-family points toward knowing by encounter and perception, so the problem is not merely missing information: God is not truly perceived.
ALSO GROWS
ginōskō: Know, perceive through encounter.
γινώσκω
Its relation to ἀγνωσία shows that the missing knowledge concerns perception, not just possession of facts.
gnōsis: Knowing, knowledge.
γνῶσις
The contrast between γνῶσις and ἀγνωσία makes the verse’s diagnosis plain: knowing is absent.
THE PATTERN
Clear perception and knowing God belong together: awakening brings a person into a life ordered by that perception.
Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.THE THREAD
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.The word translated “righteousness” here is δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē), alignment, the same Greek word-family as “righteousness” in 1 Corinthians 15:34. Romans makes that alignment visible in what your members serve: the first verse’s awakening becomes a lived orientation.
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