What Does John 18:23 Mean in the King James?
Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?
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
Jesus turns the blow into a question of evidence: if his words are wrong, name the wrong; if they are right, the violence has no answer.
THE MEANING
A charge has to meet what was actually said: if the words are wrong, the wrong can be named; if they are right, the strike cannot answer them. Jesus’s name carries the sense of deliverance, and here that deliverance meets accusation without becoming another act of force.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Force does not prove guilt, and an accusation does not become true merely because someone with authority speaks it.
THE ROOT
μαρτύρησον
martyrēson
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
To witness or testify.
“bear witness” in this verse is martyrēson. The same Greek stem names the witness and the testimony: μάρτυς (martys) and μαρτυρία (martyria). Jesus asks for the alleged wrong to be put into witnessable form, so evidence, not the blow, answers the charge.
ALSO GROWS
martys: witness
μάρτυς
The person who can testify shares the stem of Jesus’s demand to testify.
martyria: testimony
μαρτυρία
The testimony is the evidence that gives a charge something concrete to rest on.
κακῶς
kakōs
GROWS FROM
κακ-
Bad, wrong, or evil.
The adverb translated “evil” and the following word translated “evil” share this root. The charge and the alleged wrong are tied to the same word-family: if his speech is wrong, that wrong can be named.
ALSO GROWS
kakos: bad, wrong, or evil
κακός
This adjective shares the root behind κακῶς and names the quality being alleged.
kakia: evil or malice
κακία
This related noun shows the root can name wrongdoing as a condition or disposition.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yēshūaʿ
GROWS FROM
יָשַׁע
To deliver, bringing someone out of constriction into spaciousness.
The Greek name Ἰησοῦς, written here as Jesus, carries the Hebrew name Yeshua, rooted in יָשַׁע. The name’s nature is deliverance; in this scene, the deliverer meets accusation and a blow without answering with another blow.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuʿah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun shares the y-sh-ʿ root and names the movement out of constriction.
môshîaʿ: one who delivers
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This word from the same root describes the one who brings deliverance.
THE PATTERN
A charge is tested by witnessable evidence; force cannot establish its truth.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me.THE THREAD
It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.“Testimony” here, μαρτυρία (martyria), shares the μαρτυρ- stem with Jesus’s command to “bear witness” in John 18:23. The shared word-family connects his challenge to a larger pattern: a charge is weighed through testimony, not settled by a blow.
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