What Does John 4:8 Mean in the King James?
(For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
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 Greek word-family for buying food here is the same one Paul uses for being “bought with a price,” joining an everyday errand to the language of being claimed.
THE MEANING
Your ordinary needs move alongside moments that uncover a deeper thirst. While the disciples are away to obtain food, the conversation at the well continues to open. This verse holds practical provision and encounter in the same scene.
THE ROOT
ἀγοράσωσιν
agorasōsin
GROWS FROM
ἀγορά
agora
Marketplace; the sphere of buying and selling.
“buy” in this verse is agorasōsin. The word for the disciples’ food errand belongs to the same family as language for being bought out. English makes this sound like a simple transaction, while the Greek word-family also carries the language of release and belonging.
ALSO GROWS
agora: Marketplace, the place of buying and selling.
ἀγορά
It reveals the market beneath the verb: the disciples are obtaining food through an ordinary purchase.
exagorazō: Buy out; redeem.
ἐξαγοράζω
Its shared root connects this small errand with scripture’s language of being bought out.
THE PATTERN
Ordinary bodily needs can become the setting in which a deeper reality is uncovered.
And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up.Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.THE THREAD
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.The same Greek verb-family names the disciples’ purchase and being “bought with a price.” That shared word opens a bridge from daily provision to scripture’s language of release and belonging.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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