What Does 1 Corinthians 3:11 Mean in the King James?
For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
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 foundation is a person already laid beneath what can be built, not an idea waiting to be invented.
THE MEANING
The ground beneath the reader’s life is already named: Jesus Christ. The verse presents that ground as a person, not an abstract principle, and as already laid before anything else is built.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an ultimate foundation can be self-created or replaced by a stronger alternative: the verse names Jesus Christ as the foundation already laid.
THE ROOT
θεμέλιον
themelion
GROWS FROM
θεμελι-
The Greek stem themeli- names a foundation or base and appears in words for founding or establishing.
The same stem names the base and the act of founding, joining what holds a structure to what establishes it. Here the foundation is not an abstract layer: it is Jesus Christ himself.
ALSO GROWS
themelios: foundation, base
θεμέλιος
This related form makes the underlying base explicit: the verse identifies that base with Jesus Christ.
themelioō: to lay a foundation, establish
θεμελιόω
The same stem describes the act of establishing a base, illuminating the verse’s contrast between the foundation already laid and any rival foundation someone might try to lay.
themeliosis: founding, establishment
θεμελίωσις
This noun names the establishing of a foundation and reinforces that the passage concerns what gives a structure its ground.
κείμενον
keimenon
GROWS FROM
κει-
The Greek stem kei- belongs to κεῖμαι (keimai), meaning to lie or be set in place; κείμενον describes the foundation as already there.
“laid” in this verse is keimenon. The verse uses one verb for what no one can do, θεῖναι (theinai, to place or lay), and another for the foundation already in place, κείμενον (keimenon, lying or set). That wording lets the foundation be both established and present as the ground beneath what follows.
ALSO GROWS
keimai: to lie, be situated
κεῖμαι
This base form shares the stem and shows the sense behind κείμενον: the foundation is already in place.
epikeimai: to lie upon, rest upon
ἐπίκειμαι
This prefixed form retains the same stem and gives a concrete picture of something resting upon a base.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
GROWS FROM
ישׁע
The Hebrew root yasha carries the sense of deliverance, being brought out into spaciousness.
The Greek text names him Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous, Jesus), the Greek form of יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua, deliverance). It also calls him Χριστός (Christos, the anointed one), so the foundation is named as deliverance embodied in the Anointed One.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun shares the root and makes the name’s meaning plain: the foundation is named with deliverance.
moshia: deliverer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This form names one who delivers and connects the name Jesus to the person identified as the foundation.
THE PATTERN
What endures is built on a ground laid before the rest of the structure begins.
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;THE THREAD
He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.Luke uses θεμέλιον (themelion, foundation), the same Greek word as this verse. It opens the image by showing what that foundation does: the house withstands the flood because its base is set on rock.
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