What Does Hebrews 2:9 Mean in the King James?
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
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 crown rests on the one who tastes death for every human, joining human vulnerability to God’s weight and honor.
THE MEANING
Jesus enters death from within human life, tasting what every person faces. God’s favor is present in this passage through death, and the one who bears it is crowned with weight and honor. The reader’s mortality lies within the reach of the one who tastes death for every human.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that death places a person beyond the reach of God’s favor is undone here: Jesus tastes death for every human.
THE ROOT
γεύσηται
geusētai
GROWS FROM
γευ-
geu-
To taste; by extension, to experience or undergo.
English “taste” can sound like a sample, but γεύομαι also means to experience or undergo. The verse presents death as something Jesus enters from within human life, not as an idea observed at a distance.
ALSO GROWS
apogeuomai: Taste, partake of, or experience.
ἀπογεύομαι
This compound keeps the sense of tasting as direct experience, echoing Jesus’ entry into death.
geusis: Tasting; the sense or act of taste.
γεῦσις
The noun names the act behind the verse’s image: death is encountered, not merely spoken about.
χάριτι
chariti
GROWS FROM
χάρις
charis
Favor; goodwill freely given.
“grace” in this verse is chariti. The verse places Jesus’ entry into death within God’s favor. In this word family, favor takes active form as something freely granted.
ALSO GROWS
charizomai: Grant freely, show favor, or forgive.
χαρίζομαι
Favor becomes an act of freely giving, deepening the sense of God’s favor in Jesus’ passage through death.
charisma: A gift freely given; a favor-gift.
χάρισμα
This branch gives favor a concrete form as a gift, rather than leaving it as an abstract quality.
ἐστεφανωμένον
estephanōmenon
GROWS FROM
στεφαν-
stephan-
A wreath or crown placed around the head.
“crowned” in this verse is estephanōmenon. The image is a wreath placed upon the one who has passed through death. Weight and honor name what rests upon him in this crowning.
ALSO GROWS
stephanoō: To crown; to place a wreath upon.
στεφανόω
The verb shows the crown as something bestowed upon Jesus after his passage through death.
stephanē: A wreath, crown, or headband.
στεφάνη
This related noun keeps the image concrete: the one who tastes death is crowned with honor.
THE PATTERN
The one who enters suffering and death is joined to honor and becomes a way through for others.
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:THE THREAD
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;The same Greek term, θάνατος (thanatos), meaning “death,” names what Jesus tastes here and what he enters through shared flesh and blood in the next verse. Hebrews 2:14 shows this entry meeting death’s power, opening “for every man” as a shared confrontation with death itself.
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