What Does James 2:11 Mean in the King James?
For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the 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
The same speaker gives both commands, so keeping one cannot make a breach of the other disappear.
THE MEANING
Both commands stand under one voice now: refusing one harm does not erase the other. One breach makes you a transgressor of the instruction as a whole, even while the remaining commands are unbroken. The verse holds distinct commands within one authority.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that keeping one command cancels a breach of another.
THE ROOT
νόμος
nomos
GROWS FROM
νέμω
nemō
To allot, assign, or distribute; this is the traditional etymological connection of νόμος.
“law” in this verse is nomos. The verse names two commands but calls their shared authority one νόμος. Its traditional link to νέμω preserves a sense of instruction as an assigned order: both commands belong to that one ordering.
ALSO GROWS
nomothetēs: Lawgiver
νομοθέτης
The lawgiver is the one who establishes the instruction that holds both commands.
nomimos: Lawful, according to rule
νόμιμος
This related word describes what accords with the instruction.
παραβάτης
parabatēs
GROWS FROM
παραβαίνω
parabainō
To step beside or across; to go beyond, transgress.
English can make “transgressor” sound like a status or label. The Greek carries the image of stepping across: one broken command is a crossing of the instruction both commands share.
ALSO GROWS
parabainō: Step over, transgress
παραβαίνω
It makes the verse’s image of crossing the instruction’s boundary visible.
parabasis: Transgression, a crossing
παράβασις
It names the crossing itself, showing how the related words keep the image of stepping beyond.
THE PATTERN
Distinct commands remain joined under one source, so breaking one makes a person a transgressor of the instruction as a whole.
Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.THE THREAD
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.Both verses use νόμος (nomos), “law” or “instruction.” James shows distinct commands under one instruction; Matthew pictures the whole instruction hanging on two commandments, revealing the structure that joins them.
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