What Does Ephesians 5:2 Mean in the King James?

And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
Ephesians 5:2 · 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.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

The fragrant offering is love made concrete as the Anointed One gives himself.

This verse names your present way through life as a walk whose love takes concrete form in the giving of the self. The Anointed One’s self-giving is called an offering and sacrifice to God, pictured as a pleasing fragrance. Love here is visible in what is handed over.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that love can remain only an inward feeling or intention; here love becomes a lived path and a costly giving of oneself.

παρέδωκεν

paredōken

GROWS FROM

δίδωμι

didōmi

To give or grant.

The English given holds the act, while the Greek verb also carries the shade of handing himself over. Love is expressed as the Anointed One’s own self-delivery.

ALSO GROWS

paradidōmi: To hand over or deliver.

παραδίδωμι

It brings out the full force of the giving: he gives himself over.

apodidōmi: To give back, repay, or render.

ἀποδίδωμι

This branch shows how the same root for giving takes on different shades through its added prefix.

προσφοράν

prosphoran

GROWS FROM

φέρω

pherō

To carry, bear, or bring.

The noun carries the shape of bringing toward: he is not only the source of the gift but the one brought as it. This makes the offering personal and embodied before the verse calls it a sacrifice.

ALSO GROWS

pherō: To carry, bear, or bring.

φέρω

This is the underlying action inside the word for offering.

prospherō: To bring toward, present, or offer.

προσφέρω

It makes the direction of the offering visible: something is brought toward God.

περιπατεῖτε

peripateite

GROWS FROM

πατέω

pateō

To tread or walk.

“walk” in this verse is peripateite. The verb retains the body’s repeated tread, while its use for a way of life makes love a path of lived movement. Love is presented as a course walked, not an idea held apart from life.

ALSO GROWS

pateō: To tread or walk.

πατέω

It preserves the physical movement beneath the image of a way of life.

katapateō: To tread down or trample.

καταπατέω

The same tread can shape very different actions, showing how the path itself matters.

Love takes bodily form as an offering, and what is offered becomes pleasing to God.

And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
Genesis 8:21 · KJVThe offering’s fragrance marks a sacrifice received by God.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13 · KJVLove reaches its clearest expression in the giving of one’s life for others.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Romans 12:1 · KJVThe offering becomes a lived, bodily reality presented to God.
By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Hebrews 10:10 · KJV

Hebrews uses the same Greek noun, ⁨προσφορά⁩ (prosphora), meaning offering. There, the body of Jesus Christ is named as the offering; here, the Anointed One’s self is given as offering and sacrifice.

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Ephesians 5:2 KJV Meaning