What Does Galatians 5:23 Mean in the King James?
Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
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
Temperance is strength held within: joined to meekness, it becomes power that has nothing to oppose in instruction.
THE MEANING
Meekness and self-command name the Spirit’s fruit alive in you now: strength that does not need to dominate, and power able to hold its own impulses. No instruction stands against these qualities; they move toward what is good without doing harm.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that restraint is simply weakness dissolves here: the word rendered “temperance” names strength held within, and the verse says no law is against these qualities.
THE ROOT
ἐγκράτεια
enkrateia
GROWS FROM
κρατ
krat
Hold, exercise power, or prevail.
The word translated “temperance” is built around strength: it describes power exercised within, the capacity to hold one’s own impulses. Beside meekness, that inward mastery is strength without domination.
ALSO GROWS
kratos: Strength, power, might.
κράτος
This branch shows that temperance is not mere passivity; the word carries the language of power.
krateō: To hold, take hold, or master.
κρατέω
The sense of holding illuminates self-command as the capacity to keep one’s own power from becoming harm.
THE PATTERN
When strength is governed inwardly and expressed as good toward others, it fulfills rather than opposes instruction.
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.THE THREAD
And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;“Temperance” translates the same Greek word, ἐγκράτεια (enkrateia), rooted in κρατ (krat), the language of holding and power. Here that inward mastery appears as one link in a growing sequence, showing the same strength at work alongside patience.
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