What Does Hebrews 7:16 Mean in the King James?
Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
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
“Endless” here means more than life without an end: it is life that cannot be dissolved.
THE MEANING
The one who stands as priest for you is grounded in a life no flesh-bound command can establish. The Greek word translated “endless” describes life that cannot be loosened apart or dismantled.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a rule rooted in flesh establishes this priesthood; the verse names indissoluble life as its power.
THE ROOT
ἀκαταλύτου
akatalytou
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
To loosen or unbind; in καταλύω (katalyō), to dissolve, dismantle, or bring down.
The Greek word for “endless” is built from the idea of dissolution with a negation: life that cannot be dissolved. The verse describes more than unending duration; it points to a life that cannot be taken apart.
ALSO GROWS
lyō: To loosen or unbind.
λύω
The underlying action clarifies what this life resists: being loosened or broken apart.
katalyō: To dissolve, dismantle, or bring down.
καταλύω
The word translated “endless” negates this kind of dissolution; its life remains intact.
ζῆς
zoēs
GROWS FROM
ζάω
zaō
To live, to be alive.
The verse’s “life” belongs to a word family that names both life itself and living beings. Joined to “indissoluble,” it presents livingness as the source of this priesthood’s power, not a flesh-bound command.
ALSO GROWS
zōē: Life.
ζωή
This is the noun used in the verse: the enduring life that grounds the priesthood.
zōon: A living being or creature.
ζῷον
The same life-root reaches from life as a reality to the living being who embodies it.
THE PATTERN
Life’s authority rests in a source death and dissolution cannot undo.
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.THE THREAD
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.The Greek verb ζάω (zaō), “to live,” is the root behind the word for “life” in verse 16 and appears here as “liveth.” The life that cannot be dissolved continues as intercession that does not cease.
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