What Does 1 John 5:16 Mean in the King James?
If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
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 places asking beside life being given, while refusing to extend that instruction to the missing that is toward death.
THE MEANING
This verse places a brother’s missing before your sight and joins your asking to life being given to him. It also distinguishes missing that is not toward death from missing that is, while leaving that second condition unnamed here.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that every brother’s failure has the same end: the verse distinguishes missing that is not toward death from missing that is.
THE ROOT
ἁμαρτίαν
hamartían
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
hamart-
To miss, err, or go wrong.
“sin” in this verse is hamartían. The word belongs to the same family as the verb for missing and the word for one who misses. The verse distinguishes one kind of missing from another by its direction toward death.
ALSO GROWS
hamartánō: To miss, err, or do wrong.
ἁμαρτάνω
The verb shares the seed of the noun in “sin a sin,” keeping the act and its name in one word family.
hamartōlós: A sinner; one who misses or errs.
ἁμαρτωλός
James uses this word for the person who is turned back, linking the person and the act through the same root family.
ζωή
zōḗ
GROWS FROM
ζω-
zō-
To live; to be alive.
This family moves from living to making alive. Here, the response to a brother’s missing is expressed as life being given, not merely as a change in how he is regarded.
ALSO GROWS
záō: To live; be alive.
ζάω
The noun for life grows from the verb for living, keeping the promised outcome concrete.
zōopoiéō: To make alive; give life.
ζωοποιέω
This related verb makes explicit the giving of life that stands beside the act of asking.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pairs turning from a deathward course with life, sometimes through another person’s care.
For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.THE THREAD
Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.James uses the same hamart- word family for the sinner and the sins, connecting the person and the missing as 1 John does. It also joins turning someone back to life beyond death, opening the relational movement in this verse further.
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