What Does 1 Corinthians 6:7 Mean in the King James?
Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?
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 verse calls the lawsuit itself a defeat: a community can win a case and still lose its shared life.
THE MEANING
When a dispute with a brother becomes a lawsuit, the verse names the shared condition as a defeat before judgment is rendered. It holds the injury plainly in view while asking whether bearing wrong or deprivation costs less than turning a brother into an opponent. The fracture between people can matter more than the case’s result.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that winning the case means the conflict has been won: the verse names the lawsuit itself as a defeat.
THE ROOT
ἥττημα
hēttēma
GROWS FROM
ἡττάω
hēttaō
To be overcome, defeated, or come off worse.
Beneath “fault” is ἥττημα (hēttēma, defeat or loss), so the verse names an existing defeat within the community before any case is decided. The lawsuit is a shared diminishment, not merely an individual mistake.
ALSO GROWS
hēttaomai: To be defeated or come off worse.
ἡττάομαι
The verbal family makes the “fault” a defeat already occurring within the group.
hēttōn: Lesser, inferior, or worse.
ἥττων
This branch carries the sense of coming out diminished, which sharpens the verse’s picture of communal loss.
ἀδικεῖσθε
adikeisthe
GROWS FROM
δίκη
dikē
Right, justice, or judgment; ἀδικέω (adikeō) means to do or suffer wrong.
“take wrong” in this verse is adikeisthe. The verb ἀδικέω (adikeō, to do or suffer wrong) appears here as ἀδικεῖσθε (adikeisthe, you suffer wrong): one word-family holds both sides of injustice. Its branches show how wrongdoing and alignment turn on the same question of what is right.
ALSO GROWS
adikia: Injustice or wrongdoing.
ἀδικία
This branch names the harm contained in being wronged.
dikaiosynē: Alignment.
δικαιοσύνη
Its relation to δίκη (dikē, right or justice) brings the verse’s conflict into focus as a break from right alignment between people.
THE PATTERN
A conflict can deepen its damage when each person insists on returning injury.
Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee.And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.THE THREAD
Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.The paired verbs ἀδικέω (adikeō, to do or suffer wrong) and ἀποστερέω (apostereō, to deprive or defraud) recur in 6:8 with their direction reversed: here the question is why they will not receive wrong and deprivation; next, they are the ones doing wrong and defrauding their brothers. The shared roots expose the reversal from resisting harm to inflicting it.
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