What Does 1 Corinthians 6:8 Mean in the King James?
Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.
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 makes injustice tangible: you are not merely doing wrong, you are depriving people you name as family.
THE MEANING
You can wrong someone by taking what is theirs, even while calling them family. The verse holds the breach and the loss together: another person is left without what is due.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that harm shrinks when it happens within a family falls away: closeness does not make deprivation harmless.
THE ROOT
ἀποστερεῖτε
apostereite
GROWS FROM
στερε- (stere-), in ἀποστερέω (apostereō)
To deprive, keep from, or cause to lack.
“Defraud” carries the act of depriving someone, with the ἀπό prefix adding the sense of taking away. The word holds both the taking and the lack left behind.
ALSO GROWS
stereō: To deprive or keep from.
στερέω
It exposes the act under “defraud” as making another person lack what belongs to them.
sterēsis: Deprivation or lack.
στέρησις
The same word family names the resulting absence, showing what the taking leaves in its wake.
ἀδικεῖτε
adikeite
GROWS FROM
δικ- (dik-), from δίκη (dikē)
Right, justice, or what is due.
The English “wrong” can sound like a vague mistake; the dik- family measures action against what is rightfully due. The next verb names the breach in concrete terms: another person is deprived.
ALSO GROWS
adikia: Injustice or wrongdoing.
ἀδικία
It names the state produced when action departs from what is right.
dikaiosynē: Justice, alignment with what is right.
δικαιοσύνη
Its shared dik- seed reveals the relationship between wrongdoing and alignment with what is due.
ἀδελφούς
adelphous
GROWS FROM
ἀδελφ-
adelph-
Sibling or kin.
“brethren” in this verse is adelphous. The word places the deprived person inside a relationship of kinship. The harm lands on people the verse names as family, not on an anonymous other.
ALSO GROWS
adelphē: Sister.
ἀδελφή
The same kinship word family includes sisters as well as brothers.
adelphotēs: Brotherhood or kinship community.
ἀδελφότης
It extends the sibling word into a shared community, making the relational reach of the verse visible.
THE PATTERN
Deprivation makes injustice visible wherever someone withholds what another is owed.
Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates:Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.THE THREAD
Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.Mark’s “Defraud not” is ἀποστερήσῃς (apostērēsēs, “defraud” or “deprive”), a form of the same verb ἀποστερέω (apostereō) used here. Mark places deprivation beside stealing and false witness, showing that defrauding is a distinct way of taking from another.
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