What Does 1 Corinthians 7:5 Mean in the King James?
Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
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
Even a spiritual pause from intimacy has a built-in return: it is agreed, temporary, and mutual.
THE MEANING
Your shared intimacy can pause for a bounded time of prayer, but the pause rests on mutual agreement and includes coming together again. The risk named is desire outrunning self-mastery, a vulnerability the verse addresses between both of you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that devotion makes unilateral or indefinite withdrawal harmless: the pause is agreed, limited, and followed by return.
THE ROOT
συμφώνου
symphōnou
GROWS FROM
φωνή (phōnē), in the συμφων- family
Voice, sound; in this compound, agreement or harmony, sounding together.
The word translated “consent” carries the sense of being in accord. The pause is shaped by shared agreement, not by one person deciding alone.
ALSO GROWS
phōnē: Voice, sound
φωνή
It preserves the voice and sound element within the word for agreement.
symphōneō: To agree, be in accord
συμφωνέω
This related word makes the shared accord in the passage visible.
ἀκρασία
akrasia
GROWS FROM
κρατ (krat), κράτος (kratos)
Strength, power, mastery.
“incontinency” in this verse is akrasia. The word names a lack of self-mastery. It identifies desire becoming difficult to govern as the risk during the pause, without placing that vulnerability on only one spouse.
ALSO GROWS
enkrateia: Self-control, mastery
ἐγκράτεια
It shares the κρατ root and expresses the mastery whose absence ἀκρασία names.
krateō: To hold, grasp, have power over
κρατέω
It shows the root’s sense of holding power, which is lacking in ἀκρασία.
THE PATTERN
Intimacy is mutual, and its rhythms include both closeness and restraint.
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.THE THREAD
Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.The word translated “agree” shares the συμφων- family with “with consent” here, carrying the sense of voices in accord. That connection makes the pause a shared agreement between two people.
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