What Does 2 Peter 2:18 Mean in the King James?
For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
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 loudest promise can be bait: its grandness hides emptiness while desire supplies the hook.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to you now about a trap: inflated speech can sound substantial while carrying emptiness. It reaches through bodily craving and shameless excess toward people who have only just escaped a life of wandering. What sounds like abundance can pull you back toward the disorientation you have begun to leave.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Grand-sounding promises are not necessarily substantial or life-giving; their appeal can conceal what they feed.
THE ROOT
δελεάζουσιν
deleazousin
GROWS FROM
δέλεαρ
delear
To lure or entice with bait.
“allure” in this verse is deleazousin. The word carries the image of bait set to catch what is drawn toward it. Here, swelling speech is the bait, and desire is what it catches.
ALSO GROWS
delear: Bait or a lure.
δέλεαρ
The source image makes the verse’s persuasion concrete: the words entice by offering something desire wants to take hold of.
deleazō: To entice with bait.
δελεάζω
James 1:14 uses this verb for being “enticed,” showing the same baiting action at work in temptation.
ματαιότητος
mataiotētos
GROWS FROM
μαται-
matai-
Empty, futile, without lasting substance.
“vanity” in this verse is mataiotētos. The speech is not merely exaggerated; it is described as empty at its core. Its swelling size and its hollowness belong together: the language grows where substance is missing.
ALSO GROWS
mataios: Empty or futile.
μάταιος
This adjective shares the same word family and names the lack of substance beneath the impressive speech.
mataioō: To make futile or empty.
ματαιόω
Romans 1:21 uses this verb of minds becoming futile, showing how emptiness can shape a person’s inner life as well as speech.
πλάνῃ
planē
GROWS FROM
πλαν-
plan-
To wander or lead astray.
The people described as living in error are living in a state of wandering. The verse’s bait threatens to draw those who have just escaped back into that same unsettled direction.
ALSO GROWS
planaō: To wander or lead astray.
πλανάω
This verb shows that error can be a movement away from the way, not only a mistaken idea.
planos: A deceiver or one who leads astray.
πλάνος
The related word describes an agent of that wandering, connecting misleading speech with the life of error it sustains.
THE PATTERN
Words that inflate their promise can use desire as bait, turning escape from wandering into a renewed pull toward it.
With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.THE THREAD
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.James’s δελεαζόμενος (deleazomenos, “being enticed with bait”) shares the verb behind “allure” here. Peter shows speech carrying the bait outward; James shows desire as the place where it catches.
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