What Does John 1:6 Mean in the King James?
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
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
John is introduced as a person whose identity is already held inside a sending from God, before he speaks a word.
THE MEANING
The verse brings you face to face with a life that begins in being sent from God, before any work is named. John’s name carries the nature of favor: YHWH has shown favor, made visible through a human presence.
THE ROOT
ἀπεσταλμένος
apestalmenos
GROWS FROM
ἀποστέλλω
To send out or dispatch; στέλλω means to send, and ἀπό gives the sense of sending away or forth.
The form in this verse means “having been sent,” so John’s sending marks his identity as he arrives. English can make “sent” sound like a completed errand; the Greek form holds the result of that sending in view.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: One sent out; an envoy or messenger.
ἀπόστολος
This word from the same family frames the sent person as a messenger, illuminating John’s role in the verse.
apostolē: A sending or commission.
ἀποστολή
This branch names the act of sending itself, matching the verse’s emphasis that John’s origin is “from God.”
ὄνομα
onoma
GROWS FROM
ὀνοματ-
Name, designation, or renown; ὀνοματ- is the stem seen in forms of the Greek word for name.
The Greek word-family includes both naming and being named or renowned; the verse makes John’s identity something spoken, not self-invented. Ἰωάννης (Iōannēs) carries Hebrew Yohanan (יוֹחָנָן), “YHWH has shown favor,” gathering the character of the witness into his name.
ALSO GROWS
onomazō: To name or call.
ὀνομάζω
The branch turns the name into an act of naming, showing that John is introduced through an identity given in words.
onomastos: Named or renowned.
ὀνομαστός
This branch connects a name with what becomes known about a person, linking John’s name to the favor his witness makes visible.
THE PATTERN
A life sent by God carries God’s purpose into the world through a human presence.
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.THE THREAD
Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.John 1:6 uses ἀποστέλλω, “send out,” to describe John as sent from God. Jesus uses the same Greek verb for the Father’s sending of him, extending the pattern of divine sending through the Gospel.
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