What Does 1 Timothy 5:3 Mean in the King James?

Honour widows that are widows indeed.

1 Timothy 5:3 · KJV

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 honor an act of valuation: widowhood does not erase a woman’s standing.

THE MEANING

A woman who is truly widowed remains within the community’s field of care. The verse gives her worth public weight; the loss of her husband does not make her invisible.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

That losing a husband removes a woman’s standing or claim to the community’s regard.

THE ROOT

τιμάω

timaō

GROWS FROM

τιμ-

Value, price, or worth; as a verb, to value or honor.

The English “honour” can sound like polite recognition; ⁨τιμάω⁩ carries the sense of assigning someone worth. The verse gives a widow’s value public weight: her loss does not erase her standing in the community.

ALSO GROWS

timē: Value, price, honor

τιμή

This noun shares the verb’s root and shows that honoring begins with the value assigned to someone.

timios: Precious, valuable, costly

τίμιος

This branch shows what is treated as carrying worth and weight.

THE PATTERN

A community’s integrity is visible in whether people made vulnerable by loss remain within its care.

He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.

Deuteronomy 10:18 · KJVGod’s care for the widow includes food and clothing, making regard concrete.

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Isaiah 1:17 · KJVThe widow’s case stands alongside justice for the oppressed and fatherless, showing whose vulnerability the community protects.

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

James 1:27 · KJVVisiting widows in their affliction becomes part of what an undefiled life looks like before God.

THE THREAD

For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:

Mark 7:10 · KJV

The same Greek verb, ⁨τιμάω⁩ (timaō), appears here as “Honour.” In Mark, the surrounding verses expose how a religious claim can leave parents without care, making the lived weight inside honor visible.

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