What Does 1 John 5:21 Mean in the King James?
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
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
An idol is an image, a visible form that can stand in for the living God, so the verse makes guarding yourself a matter of what you let represent the divine.
THE MEANING
You are addressed tenderly and told to guard your whole self from idols. The warning speaks wherever an image or substitute is treated as the living source; what you trust can shape you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief this undoes is that a visible substitute is harmless because it is only an object.
THE ROOT
εἰδώλων
eidōlōn
GROWS FROM
εἰδ-
eid-
Form, shape, or visible appearance.
The word for idols belongs to the family of form and appearance: it names an image or likeness. That does not make every visible thing an idol; it reveals the danger of letting an image stand in for the living God.
ALSO GROWS
eidos: Form, shape, or appearance.
εἶδος
It makes the image-language in “idols” visible: the warning concerns a form treated as more than a representation.
idea: Appearance, form, or conception.
ἰδέα
The related word carries form from what is seen toward what is conceived, showing how an image can also shape what a person takes to be real.
φυλάξατε
phylaxate
GROWS FROM
φυλακ-
phylak-
Guard or watch over.
“Keep yourselves” is an active charge to guard the self, not merely to avoid an object. The root gathers watchfulness and custody into the verse’s final command.
ALSO GROWS
phylax: Guard or guardian.
φύλαξ
The command gives you the posture of a guardian over yourself.
phylakē: Watch, guard duty, or custody.
φυλακή
The same family names keeping watch, which brings out the vigilance in “keep yourselves.”
THE PATTERN
What the self trusts shapes it, so a lifeless image must not take the place of the living God.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;THE THREAD
For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;This verse uses the same Greek word for idols, then shows the turn away from them toward the living and true God. That contrast opens the warning as a call to guard the self for life with the living, not merely to avoid objects.
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