What Does 2 Timothy 2:17 Mean in the King James?

And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;

2 Timothy 2:17 · 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 word translated “eat” is pictured as finding pasture: destructive speech keeps feeding until its damage spreads.

THE MEANING

A destructive word does not stay contained: it feeds like gangrene and carries its damage outward. Hymenaeus and Philetus are named, but the warning remains alive wherever speech becomes a spreading injury.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that speech is harmless as long as it is “only words” dissolves here: speech itself can consume and spread harm.

THE ROOT

νομήν

nomēn

GROWS FROM

νέμω

nemō

To pasture or feed; also to apportion or distribute.

The Greek phrase is “will have pasture” or “will have feeding,” which the KJV renders as “will eat.” The same noun names pasture in John 10:9, so the hidden image is not just a bite but something finding ground to feed on; the gangrene image names what that feeding does.

ALSO GROWS

nomē: Feeding, pasture, or grazing ground.

νομή

This is the noun behind “eat” here and “pasture” in John 10:9; the same word can describe nourishment or, in this image, what feeds and spreads destructively.

nomos: Instruction, custom, or an assigned order.

νόμος

The shared root family echoes feeding with what is laid out as instruction: a word distributes influence, and that influence can nourish or consume.

THE PATTERN

What feeds and takes hold within a community can spread beyond its first point.

Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

1 Corinthians 5:6 · KJVA small influence works its way through the whole, just as the word in 2 Timothy feeds and spreads.

Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

Hebrews 12:15 · KJVA root that springs up does not remain private; its growth reaches and affects many.

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

James 3:5 · KJVA small spark in speech can kindle consequences far beyond its starting point.

THE THREAD

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

John 10:9 · KJV

The phrase translated “eat” here and “pasture” in John 10:9 uses the same Greek noun, ⁨νομή⁩ (nomē): feeding ground. In John, pasture sustains life; here, the word feeds like gangrene, and its feeding carries destruction.

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