What Does Jude 1:5 Mean in the King James?
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
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 same Lord who brings people out can also destroy them; rescue is not an exemption from the consequence of distrust.
THE MEANING
You are being reminded that being brought out of constriction is real deliverance, but it is not immunity from the destruction this verse attaches to refusing trust. The Lord is shown as both the one who releases and the one who destroys, and the sentence holds that severity intact.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a past rescue guarantees future safety regardless of whether trust remains.
THE ROOT
σώσας
sōsas
GROWS FROM
σωζ-
Greek σωζ- (sōz-): rescue, preserve, bring safely through.
“saved” in this verse is sōsas. The word names an actual bringing to safety, and Egypt is the place the people are brought out from. Its recognized word family also names deliverance and the deliverer, keeping rescue concrete: an act with an agent, not a status that erases the verse’s next clause.
ALSO GROWS
diasōzō: bring safely through, preserve, rescue
διασῴζω
This compound keeps the rescue root visible and adds the sense of being brought through, illuminating deliverance as movement out of danger.
sōtēr: deliverer, rescuer
σωτήρ
This recognized member of the same Greek word family names the one who rescues, making the Lord’s agency in the verse explicit.
πιστεύσαντας
pisteúsantas
GROWS FROM
πιστ-
Greek πιστ- (pist-): trust, reliance, and what is reliable.
“believed not” in this verse is pisteúsantas. The word translated “believed” belongs to the family that names trust and reliability. That gives the phrase the weight of reliance, rather than making it sound only like failure to accept an idea.
ALSO GROWS
pistis: trust, reliance
πίστις
This noun from the same family brings out the kind of reliance the verse says was absent.
pistos: firm, reliable, trustworthy
πιστός
The adjective shows the family’s sense of what can be relied upon, casting trust as weight-bearing.
ἀπώλεσεν
apōlesen
GROWS FROM
ὀλλυ-
Greek ὀλλυ- (olly-): destroy, cause to perish; the verse’s form comes through the compound ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi).
“destroyed” in this verse is apōlesen. The verb is active here: the Lord destroys those who do not trust. Its wider word family also names loss and perishing, so the consequence registers as ruin as well as destruction.
ALSO GROWS
apōleia: loss, destruction
ἀπώλεια
This noun belongs to the ἀπόλλυμι word family and gives the outcome the dimension of loss.
apolōlōs: having perished, having been lost
ἀπολωλώς
This participle from the same verb family shows the result as a state of perishing or being lost.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance does not make trust irrelevant: the text holds rescue together with the consequence of unbelief.
Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation:But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.THE THREAD
So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.Jude’s “believed not” and Hebrews’ “unbelief” belong to the same Greek πιστ- family of trust and reliance. Hebrews makes the hinge explicit: they do not enter because trust is absent.
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