What Does Jude 1:6 Mean in the King James?
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
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 translated “reserved” is the same word translated “kept”: the ones who did not keep their own domain are themselves kept under darkness.
THE MEANING
The verse holds departure and restraint together: the angels leave their own dwelling, and God keeps them in everlasting chains beneath darkness until the great day. Their leaving does not put them beyond God’s keeping. Judgment remains ahead while their confinement is already in place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that leaving one’s appointed place means escaping accountability; the angels remain held for judgment after they leave.
THE ROOT
τηρέω
tēreō
GROWS FROM
τηρέω
tēreō
To keep watch over, guard, or preserve.
The Greek uses this same verb first for what the angels failed to do and then for what God does to them. The KJV’s “kept” and “reserved” conceal the echo: they do not keep their domain, and they are kept under restraint.
ALSO GROWS
tērētēs: A keeper or observer.
τηρητής
This related word makes the root’s sense of guarding visible in the angels’ failure to keep their domain.
tērēsis: Keeping or custody.
τήρησις
Its sense of custody illuminates the second use of the verb, where God keeps them until judgment.
ἀρχή
archē
GROWS FROM
ἀρχή
archē
Beginning, first place, rule, or authority.
“First estate” translates a word that can name both a beginning and a domain of authority. Their failure is not simply a change of address: they do not keep the sphere entrusted to them.
ALSO GROWS
archōn: A ruler or one who holds authority.
ἄρχων
This branch brings out the authority contained in the word for the angels’ “first estate.”
archēgos: A leader or originator.
ἀρχηγός
Its link to beginning and leadership echoes the sense of an original place or order.
οἰκητήριον
oikētērion
GROWS FROM
οἶκος
oikos
House, dwelling, or household.
“habitation” in this verse is oikētērion. This is a dwelling-place word from the Greek οἰκ- family, and “their own” ties the dwelling to the angels who leave it. Together with ἀρχή, the verse names both a domain and a dwelling abandoned.
ALSO GROWS
oikeō: To dwell or inhabit.
οἰκέω
This verb makes the habitation’s basic sense concrete: a place where someone dwells.
oikia: A house or home.
οἰκία
This related word shows the household sense carried by the same word family.
THE PATTERN
A present condition can hold a life in readiness for an appointed judgment.
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.THE THREAD
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;Jude uses τηρέω twice: the angels fail to keep their domain, and God keeps them in chains. Peter uses the same verb for their being kept unto judgment, making the repeated root in Jude’s “kept” and “reserved” unmistakable.
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