What Does Hebrews 3:4 Mean in the King James?
For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.
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 verb behind both “builded” and “built” also means to prepare and equip, so God’s making of all things carries the sense of a world made ready.
THE MEANING
Every house bears the trace of someone preparing and building it. The verse extends that maker-and-made relation to all things: God is the one who prepares and builds the whole. The human scale and the universal scale meet in the same act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what exists is self-made and owes nothing beyond itself dissolves here: every house has a builder, and all things have God as their maker.
THE ROOT
κατασκευάσας
kataskeuásas
GROWS FROM
σκευάζω (skeuázō), within κατασκευάζω (kataskeuázō)
To prepare, equip, or construct.
The verse uses forms of this same verb for the person who builds a house and for God, who has built all things. Its sense of preparing and equipping adds a layer: God’s making is also the bringing of things into readiness.
ALSO GROWS
skeuázō: Prepare or equip.
σκευάζω
This base verb keeps the idea of making ready within the word translated “built.”
kataskeuḗ: Preparation, equipment, or construction.
κατασκευή
This related noun shows the family holding both the act of preparing and the resulting construction.
οἶκος
oikos
GROWS FROM
οἰκ-
House, home, or household.
The Greek word for “house” can also mean a household, the people gathered within a dwelling. The image can hold both a structure and the life organized around it, while the verse widens its scale to all things.
ALSO GROWS
oikodoméō: Build a house or build up.
οἰκοδομέω
This compound carries “house” into the act of building, echoing the verse’s maker-and-house image.
oikonomía: Household management or stewardship.
οἰκονομία
This branch shows the house as an ordered household, not only a physical structure.
THE PATTERN
What is built bears witness to its maker, and the whole of creation points to God as its builder.
A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.THE THREAD
For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house.The Greek verb translated “builded” here is the same one rendered “built” in the next verse. Verse 3 sets the builder above the house; verse 4 widens that same image until God is the builder of all things.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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