What Does John 7:22 Mean in the King James?
Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man.
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 accepted Sabbath cut turns the argument back on itself: if a covenant mark may be made that day, healing a whole person cannot be dismissed as Sabbath-breaking.
THE MEANING
Circumcision reaches you through Moses, yet the verse traces its source to the fathers; you perform it even on the Sabbath. That accepted act becomes the comparison point for the charge that a whole man is made well on the same day.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The claim that Sabbath faithfulness excludes every bodily intervention cannot stand beside the accepted Sabbath circumcision named here.
THE ROOT
περιτομήν
peritomēn
GROWS FROM
τεμ-
tem-
Cut; the Greek τέμνω (temnō) family of cutting.
English gives “circumcision” as a settled ritual name, but Greek περιτομή (peritomē, “circumcision”) grows from the family of τέμνω (temnō, “to cut”): it is a cut around. The verse places that accepted cut on the Sabbath, making it the comparison point for the healing that follows.
ALSO GROWS
peritemnō: To cut around; circumcise.
περιτέμνω
This verb shares the cut-root and makes the physical action inside περιτομή explicit.
tomē: A cut; an incision.
τομή
The noun shares the τ and μ consonants in the recognized τεμ-/τομ- stem family, naming the cut itself.
atomos: Uncut; indivisible.
ἄτομος
Built from the same cut-family with a- meaning “not,” it names what is not cut; the verse’s argument moves from a limited cut to a whole person made well.
שַׁבָּת
shabbat
GROWS FROM
שבת
Cease; stop from ordinary work.
The Sabbath word grows from the Hebrew root for ceasing. Here the cessation of ordinary work stands beside an act still performed for the covenant, showing that Sabbath rest and bodily care are not treated as simple opposites.
ALSO GROWS
shāvat: To cease; stop.
שָׁבַת
This verb shares the root consonants and shows the action named by Sabbath.
shabbāton: A Sabbath rest; a solemn cessation.
שַׁבָּתוֹן
This related form carries the same root into a named period of rest, clarifying the Sabbath’s link to ceasing.
πατέρων
patérōn
GROWS FROM
πατρ-
patr-
Father; ancestor.
The verse distinguishes the immediate giver from the source: Moses transmits a practice whose lineage reaches back to the fathers. The Greek πατήρ (patēr, “father”) family also gives πατριά (patria, “lineage”), placing the practice within an inherited line rather than presenting it as Moses’ invention.
ALSO GROWS
patria: Family line; lineage.
πατριά
It shares the πατρ- consonants and makes the ancestral reach of “the fathers” visible.
patris: Fatherland; homeland.
πατρίς
It shares the same consonantal family, extending father-language into the inherited place of a people.
THE PATTERN
Sabbath cessation makes room for acts of care and life-preserving repair.
Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.THE THREAD
If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day?The next verse makes the comparison explicit: the same Sabbath that permits circumcision is where a whole man is made well. The Greek cut-family in “circumcision” ties the accepted mark directly to the challenge about healing.
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