What Does Hebrews 8:13 Mean in the King James?

In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

Hebrews 8:13 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The new covenant does not merely arrive beside the first; its very naming renders the first obsolete.

THE MEANING

The verse names a present transition: the new covenant makes the first old, and what is aging is near disappearance. The old no longer remains the final frame once the new is in view.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The first covenant must remain the governing form simply because it came first.

THE ROOT

παλαιούμενον

palaioumenon

GROWS FROM

⁨παλαι-⁩ (palai-), the ⁨παλαιόω⁩ word-family

Old; becoming old or obsolete.

The KJV uses the same verb family for “made the first old” and “decayeth”: both are forms of ⁨παλαιόω⁩ (palaioō), so obsolescence is the sentence’s repeated movement. “Waxeth old” uses a different verb, ⁨γηράσκω⁩ (gēraskō), adding a second image of aging before disappearance.

ALSO GROWS

pepalaiōken: Has made old, has rendered obsolete.

πεπαλαίωκεν

This is the same verb in the earlier phrase “he hath made the first old,” tying the first covenant’s status to the thing now decaying.

palaios: Old, former.

παλαιός

The adjective shares the oldness word-family, showing how the former thing and its becoming obsolete belong to one movement.

καινήν

kainēn

GROWS FROM

⁨καιν-⁩ (kain-), the ⁨καινός⁩ word-family

New, fresh in character or condition.

“New” translates ⁨καινός⁩ (kainos), which marks newness of character as well as sequence. Set beside the ⁨παλαι-⁩ family, it makes the verse’s contrast a change in what governs: the new covenant’s arrival exposes the first as obsolete.

ALSO GROWS

kainotēs: Newness, freshness.

καινότης

This related noun makes newness a quality of the present life, not merely a label for something that came later.

anakainoō: Renew, make new.

ἀνακαινόω

This related verb shows the same newness as an ongoing renewal, helping the verse’s “new” read as a changed condition.

THE PATTERN

When what is new comes into view, the former order loses its claim and gives way.

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:19 · KJVThe new thing springs into view and opens a way where there was no passage.

Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

Matthew 9:17 · KJVThe new cannot be contained by the old form; the old gives way under the mismatch.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17 · KJVNew creation arrives with the passing of old things and the emergence of what is new.

THE THREAD

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

Jeremiah 31:31 · KJV

Jeremiah 31:31 gives the same promise of a new covenant that Hebrews carries into this sentence. Here, the naming has an immediate consequence: the first is made old, and what is aging approaches disappearance.

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