What Does 2 Corinthians 12:15 Mean in the King James?
And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.
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 same spending-root names both what is given and what the giver expends of himself: love can pour itself out without a guarantee of equal return.
THE MEANING
You may love gladly while receiving less love in return; the verse names both the giving and its cost. It makes no promise that deeper love produces equal affection. This expenditure reaches toward living souls, the whole living person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that loving someone more necessarily makes them love you more in return.
THE ROOT
δαπανήσω
dapanēsō
GROWS FROM
δαπαν-
dapan-
To spend or expend.
“spend and be spent” in this verse is dapanēsō. The same root appears first in the active “I spend” and then in the passive “I am spent.” The grammar carries one expenditure from what the speaker gives to what happens to him, keeping the cost of glad love visible.
ALSO GROWS
dapanē: Expense or cost.
δαπάνη
It makes the verse’s spending concrete: love has a cost that is actually borne.
ekdapanaō: To spend completely or exhaust.
ἐκδαπανάω
This related form sharpens the movement from giving resources to being spent oneself.
ἀγαπῶν
agapōn
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπ-
agap-
To love or regard with care.
The same love-root appears in the speaker’s loving and his being loved. Love remains one thing in the sentence even as its direction and measure become unequal.
ALSO GROWS
agapē: Love.
ἀγάπη
The noun form gathers the act of loving into the very thing whose return is unequal.
agapētos: Beloved.
ἀγαπητός
This related word names the one who receives love, making the gap between loving and being loved easier to see.
ψυχῶν
psychōn
GROWS FROM
ψυχ-
psych-
Living soul, life, or person as a living self.
Where the KJV says “for you,” the Greek phrase names “your living souls.” The spending is directed toward people in their living selves, not toward an abstract spiritual part.
ALSO GROWS
psychē: Living soul, life, or self.
ψυχή
This is the singular form behind the phrase, showing that the giving reaches toward living persons.
psychikos: Natural; belonging to the living-soul life.
ψυχικός
This related form keeps the root connected to the life and personhood of the one being cared for.
THE PATTERN
Love’s self-giving can continue even when its return shrinks.
Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.THE THREAD
And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.The Samaritan’s care uses the same spending-root as this verse: he pays for what another person needs and leaves room for further expense. Here the expenditure reaches beyond resources to the giver himself, spent for living souls.
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