What Does 2 Corinthians 2:6 Mean in the King James?
Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many.
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 punishment has a limit: what the many have imposed is enough.
THE MEANING
When a person has caused harm, the community’s punishment can reach a real stopping point: it is enough. Beyond that point, adding condemnation can crush the person instead of repairing what broke. The next verse names that danger as overwhelming sorrow.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that justice requires punishment to continue until a person is beyond repair; what the many have imposed can be enough.
THE ROOT
ἱκανόν
hikanon
GROWS FROM
ἱκαν-
hikan-
Enough, sufficient; competent.
The same word family that calls a measure enough also gives ἱκανόω (hikanoō, to make sufficient or qualify). Here, sufficiency marks a boundary around punishment, and the next verse turns from that boundary toward comfort and release.
ALSO GROWS
hikanos: Sufficient, enough; competent.
ἱκανός
It carries the same sense of reaching an adequate measure that ἱκανόν expresses here.
hikanoō: To make sufficient; to qualify or enable.
ἱκανόω
The related verb shows that sufficiency can describe being made capable, not simply receiving more.
hikanotēs: Sufficiency, adequacy.
ἱκανότης
This noun keeps the focus on a measure that is enough, which gives the punishment in this verse a clear endpoint.
THE PATTERN
Correction has a measure and is directed toward restoration.
Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.THE THREAD
So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.The next verse shows the danger of letting punishment continue: the person may be swallowed by excessive sorrow. Its movement toward release and comfort makes the limit in this verse concrete: punishment is enough before it crushes the person.
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