What Does 1 Corinthians 15:55 Mean in the King James?
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
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
Death may still wound, but resurrection has taken from it the power to make the wound final.
THE MEANING
Death is real, but it does not hold the final victory over you. The verse confronts death’s power as something that can be challenged and overcome.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that because death can wound and bury, it must have the final word. The verse separates death’s real force from ultimate victory.
THE ROOT
κέντρον
kéntron
GROWS FROM
κεντ-
kent-
A sharp point: a sting, prick, or goad.
The word carries the image of a sharp point that wounds, and also of a goad that drives. The next verse names this sting as sin, revealing a specific piercing force behind death’s claim.
ALSO GROWS
kentrízō: To sting or prick.
κεντρίζω
This related verb makes the sharp image active: the sting is something that pierces, not just a vague pain.
kéntra: Pricks or goads; the plural form appears in Acts 26:14.
κέντρα
The goad can wound and drive at once, adding force to the image of what death’s sting does.
THE PATTERN
The powers that wound and hold the living do not get the final claim when God raises the dead.
I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.THE THREAD
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.The next verse repeats the same Greek word, κέντρον (kéntron), for “sting” and names what that piercing force is: sin. It opens the question here by showing that death’s sting is more specific than mortality’s pain.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us