What Does 2 Corinthians 6:5 Mean in the King James?
In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings;
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 word translated “imprisonments” also names a watch or guarded custody, so confinement carries the image of being held under watch.
THE MEANING
When this verse meets you now, it gives bodily strain its separate names: blows, confinement, upheaval, toil, sleeplessness, and hunger. It keeps those costs distinct instead of flattening them into one abstraction.
THE ROOT
φυλακαῖς
phylakais
GROWS FROM
φυλακ-
phylak-
guarding, custody, keeping watch
“imprisonments” in this verse is phylakais. The word belongs to a Greek word-family that includes guarding and keeping watch. Confinement is pictured as custody under watch, a held condition as well as a place.
ALSO GROWS
phylassō: guard, keep watch
φυλάσσω
This verb shows the guarding action carried by the word-family behind “imprisonments.”
phylax: guard, sentinel
φύλαξ
The guard and the guarded place belong to the same word-family, linking confinement with watchful custody.
ἀγρυπνίαις
agrypniais
GROWS FROM
ἀγρυπν-
agrypn-
wakefulness, sleeplessness
The word holds sleeplessness alongside watchfulness, making the verse’s “watchings” bodily time without rest. Wakefulness stands beside blows, confinement, toil, and hunger as another cost the verse names.
ALSO GROWS
agrypneō: stay awake, keep watch
ἀγρυπνέω
The verb names the waking action behind the noun used for “watchings.”
agrypnos: sleepless, wakeful
ἄγρυπνος
This related adjective makes the lost sleep within “watchings” visible.
THE PATTERN
The cost of a pressured life appears in distinct bodily exposures: violence, confinement, lost rest, and deprivation.
My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.THE THREAD
And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely:The Greek words translated “stripes” and “prison” recur in both verses, turning this list into a scene of blows followed by custody. Acts makes the pairing visible: bodily injury and guarded confinement arrive together.
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