What Does James 5:17 Mean in the King James?
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
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
Elias (אֵלִיָּהוּ, Eliyahu, “My God is YHWH”) shares our human feeling: the verse locates consequential prayer within ordinary vulnerability.
THE MEANING
Elias is subject to feelings like ours, standing inside the same human vulnerability you know. His prayer is intensely voiced, and rain is withheld from the earth for three years and six months.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief undone is that consequential prayer belongs only to people with an exceptional kind of inner life. Elias shares the same human passions as the reader.
THE ROOT
ὁμοιοπαθής
homoiopathēs
GROWS FROM
πάθ-
path-
What is felt or undergone: feeling, experience, suffering.
“like passions” in this verse is homoiopathēs. Beyond the emotional shade of “passions,” the Greek carries the sense of what a person undergoes. Elias shares that human experience with the reader; the same root also connects feeling to the act of sharing another’s experience.
ALSO GROWS
pathēma: An experience, suffering, or what is undergone.
πάθημα
It makes clear that the root reaches beyond emotion to the things a person lives through.
sympatheō: To feel or suffer with; to sympathize.
συμπαθέω
Hebrews 4:15 uses this same root family for sharing in human weakness, revealing a connection between feeling and fellow experience.
τῇ προσευχῇ προσηύξατο
tē proseuchē prosēuxato
GROWS FROM
εὔχομαι
euchomai
To pray, vow, or express a wish.
“prayed earnestly” in this verse is tē proseuchē prosēuxato. The English “earnestly” condenses an emphatic Greek repetition: “with prayer he prayed.” The prayer word appears as both the act and its noun, placing the intensity in the prayer itself.
ALSO GROWS
proseuchē: Prayer.
προσευχή
This is the noun in the phrase; its pairing with the verb makes the act of praying echo itself.
proseuchomai: To pray.
προσεύχομαι
This is the verb in the phrase, sharing the prayer-word with the noun beside it.
THE PATTERN
Consequential prayer arises within shared human vulnerability and embodied life.
So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees,Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.THE THREAD
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.James calls Elias ὁμοιοπαθής (homoiopathēs, “sharing like feelings”), while Hebrews says συμπαθῆσαι (sympathēsai, “to feel with”) human weakness; both carry πάθ- (path-, “what is felt or undergone”). The shared root makes human vulnerability the bridge between the praying figure and the reader.
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