What Does Ephesians 6:3 Mean in the King James?
That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
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 good this verse names is meant to come to be for you here, in a life that stretches across your days.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks of well-being taking shape in your actual life, and of that life continuing on the earth. Its promise is grounded in lived time and the world underfoot, not left as an abstraction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that biblical well-being is only an inward state or a reward beyond this life: the verse explicitly names life on earth and its duration.
THE ROOT
μακροχρόνιος
makrochronios
GROWS FROM
μακρός + χρόνος (makros + chronos)
Long + time; long-lived.
“mayest live long” in this verse is makrochronios. This compound makes the promise concrete in years on earth: life is described through its duration. Its first element also appears in the Greek word for being slow to heat, carrying the same sense of length into a response that does not flare quickly.
ALSO GROWS
makrothymia: Slow to heat; patience.
μακροθυμία
It shares the long element, showing length as something that can describe both a span of days and a measured response.
chronizō: To delay; to take time.
χρονίζω
It shares the time element, keeping the verse’s promise rooted in the passage of lived time.
γένηται
genētai
GROWS FROM
γίνομαι
ginomai
Become; come to be.
“may be well” in this verse is genētai. The clause is built around something coming to be for you: well-being is pictured as taking shape, not simply as a label. This word family also gives language for origin and generation, placing the promise among the processes by which life unfolds.
ALSO GROWS
genesis: Origin; birth; coming into being.
γένεσις
It carries the same becoming into the language of a life beginning or taking form.
genea: Generation; lineage.
γενεά
It extends the same word family into generational life, echoing the verse’s concern with life continuing through time.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures well-being as taking shape over time within the life a person actually inhabits.
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:THE THREAD
Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.This is the fuller form of the promise: it links honoring father and mother with prolonged days and things going well in the land. Ephesians carries those same paired outcomes into one compact line.
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