What Does Ephesians 5:29 Mean in the King James?
For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
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 love named here is the paired work of feeding what sustains life and warming what needs to be held.
THE MEANING
Your embodied life is met with care that feeds and cherishes it; the same pattern names how the Lord holds the assembly. Provision and tenderness belong together in that care.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the body is contemptible or spiritually disposable cannot stand beside this image: bodily nurture is the verse’s own picture for the Lord’s care of the assembly.
THE ROOT
τρέφει
trephei
GROWS FROM
τρεφ
treph
To feed, nourish, rear, bring up.
“nourisheth” in this verse is trephei. The verb carries feeding and rearing, so nourishment is active care that sustains and raises a living body. Its word family names both food and a nurse: this care is bodily and formative.
ALSO GROWS
trophē: Food, nourishment.
τροφή
The noun makes the verb’s care tangible: what nourishes is something that sustains life.
trophos: Nurse, nurturer.
τροφός
The same word family names a caregiver, connecting nourishment with the person who sustains and tends another.
θάλπει
thalpei
GROWS FROM
θαλπ
thalp
To warm, cherish, hold with tenderness.
The verb’s physical sense of warming gives “cherisheth” a closeness that English can leave hidden. Beside the feeding verb, it shows care as both provision and warmth, not mere approval.
ALSO GROWS
thalpos: Warmth, heat.
θάλπος
This related noun preserves the root’s physical warmth, revealing the tenderness carried by “cherisheth.”
thalpōrē: Warmth, comfort; a later Greek descendant of the root.
θαλπωρή
Its sense of warmth and comfort echoes the sheltering quality of the care described here.
ἐκκλησία
ekklēsia
GROWS FROM
καλέω / κλη (kaleō / klē)
To call, summon; the related κλη- forms name calling and being called.
“church” in this verse is ekklēsia. The word names an assembly, keeping the focus on gathered people rather than an institution or building. Its call-family leaves this as a living community, the people the Lord sustains.
ALSO GROWS
kaleō: To call, summon.
καλέω
The verb in the word family points toward people being summoned into an assembly.
klēsis: Calling, summons.
κλῆσις
This related noun keeps the sense of a gathered community connected to a call.
klētos: Called, invited.
κλητός
This related adjective describes people in relation to a summons, fitting the assembly as a gathered body.
THE PATTERN
Care for living beings appears as provision that sustains and tenderness that shelters.
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children:THE THREAD
But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children:“Cherisheth” translates the same Greek verb, θάλπω (thalpō), meaning to warm or cherish. The nurse image makes its bodily warmth visible, and the word for nurse shares a family with the verb for nourishing: tenderness and provision belong to one kind of care.
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