What Does Galatians 4:25 Mean in the King James?
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
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 Greek says present Jerusalem stands in the same row as Hagar and Sinai, so bondage reaches the whole household and its children.
THE MEANING
The verse describes a present order whose bondage reaches beyond one person: the household and its children share the same condition. Its correspondence with Hagar and Sinai shows how a city’s identity can carry a pattern of constraint through the people it forms.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sacred name guarantees freedom; this verse names the Jerusalem that now is as bound with her children.
THE ROOT
συστοιχεῖ
systoichei
GROWS FROM
στοιχέω
stoicheō
To stand or walk in a row, and by extension to correspond or align.
The verb translated “answereth to” carries the image of standing in the same row. Jerusalem is aligned with Hagar and Sinai: the verse presents bondage as the order this household belongs to, not an isolated condition.
ALSO GROWS
stoicheō: To walk or stand in line.
στοιχέω
It makes the correspondence in the verse a picture of shared alignment.
stoicheion: An element or basic constituent.
στοιχεῖον
The word can name a basic part of an ordered whole, echoing how a household belongs to a larger order.
δουλεύει
douleuei
GROWS FROM
δουλεύω
douleuō
To serve as a slave; to live under another’s mastery.
The Greek verb describes Jerusalem as living in a slave condition. Its word family holds the person in service and the condition of slavery together, making the bondage of the city a feature of its whole order.
ALSO GROWS
doulos: Servant; one bound to another’s service.
δοῦλος
The person in service and the city in bondage belong to the same word family.
douleia: Slavery or bondage.
δουλεία
It names the condition that the verb says Jerusalem lives under.
τέκνων
teknōn
GROWS FROM
τίκτω
tiktō
To bear or bring forth.
The word for children belongs to a family rooted in bearing and bringing forth. The verse’s mother-and-children image makes the condition communal: those brought forth within this household share its bondage.
ALSO GROWS
teknon: A child or offspring.
τέκνον
It names the children who share the condition described in the verse.
toketos: Birth or childbirth.
τοκετός
It keeps the language of offspring connected to the act of bringing forth.
THE PATTERN
A binding order reproduces its condition in the people it holds and forms.
And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.THE THREAD
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.John uses the same δουλ (doul) word family to name a person as the servant of sin. Galatians extends that language from a person to a city and its children, linking individual bondage with a condition shared across a household.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us