What Does John 4:13 Mean in the King James?
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
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
A drink can truly meet thirst while leaving the cycle of thirst intact.
THE MEANING
You can receive real relief from this water and still find thirst returning; the verse does not call the first drink false. It shows that a source can meet the present need without becoming an enduring spring. In the next sentence, the water Jesus gives becomes an inner well, opening a different relation to thirst.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a single drink from an ordinary source can permanently end thirst.
THE ROOT
διψήσει
dipsēsei
GROWS FROM
διψ-
dips-
Thirst; to be thirsty.
“thirst again” in this verse is dipsēsei. The Greek verb names thirst as a state that returns; it does not make the drink unreal. This water relieves the moment, but the thirsting state reappears.
ALSO GROWS
dípsa: thirst (noun)
δίψα
The noun names the condition that the verb in this verse says returns.
dipsāi: is thirsty
διψᾷ
The same verb appears in John 7:37, where thirst is the condition that brings someone to drink; here Jesus shows that this well water leaves thirst able to return.
ὕδατος
hydatos
GROWS FROM
ὑδ- / ὑδρο- (hyd- / hydro-)
Water.
The Greek word keeps this water concrete: it is something drawn, carried, and drunk. The same water stem appears in the woman’s water jar, tying Jesus’ words to the ordinary water she has come to draw.
ALSO GROWS
hydria: water jar
ὑδρία
The same water stem appears in the woman’s water jar in John 4:28, keeping this exchange anchored in water she draws and carries.
hydropoteō: drink water
ὑδροποτέω
This compound joins water to drinking, echoing the bodily act before the conversation opens into a different source.
THE PATTERN
A source that gives only what can be consumed leaves thirst recurring, while a living source becomes an ongoing spring.
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.THE THREAD
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.The same Greek word for water appears in both verses. In verse 13, water is drawn from a well; in verse 14, the water Jesus gives becomes a well within, answering the return of thirst.
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