What Does 1 Corinthians 9:8 Mean in the King James?
Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also?
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 question turns on whether provision for labor is merely a human argument: the instruction itself speaks in the same direction.
THE MEANING
The question reaches you when you wonder whether a claim rests only on human judgment. The word translated “law” also carries the sense of instruction, and the instruction itself bears witness to the same claim. Provision for those who labor belongs to the order being described.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that material provision for labor is merely a human concern gives way: the instruction speaks to it too.
THE ROOT
νόμος
nomos
GROWS FROM
νέμω
nemō
To apportion, assign, or pasture; νόμος is linked with the ordering of what is customary or assigned.
The English “law” can sound like a rule imposed from outside, but νόμος also carries the sense of an established instruction or order. Its word-family reaches toward apportioning: Paul asks whether the instruction itself recognizes a share for the one who labors.
ALSO GROWS
nomē: A place or share where something is pastured or distributed.
νομή
It echoes the passage’s image of an ox working through grain and the question of what portion belongs to the worker.
nomizō: To hold something as accepted or customary.
νομίζω
It shows how the word-family reaches from ordered instruction into what people recognize as the established way.
THE PATTERN
Instruction recognizes that those who labor have a share in the provision their labor produces.
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.THE THREAD
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;The same Greek word νόμος (nomos, law or instruction) appears here. The instruction can act as a witness, which sharpens Paul’s question: it speaks for the claim rather than merely standing beside it.
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