What Does Luke 21:25 Mean in the King James?
And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
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
Luke names the crisis as enclosure and no passage: the nations are pressed in while every route seems to disappear.
THE MEANING
The verse places pressure across the whole scene: signs in the sky, distress among nations, and a roaring sea. The Greek words picture people pressed in and unable to see a passage through. Here, the upheaval is named without its outcome being explained.
THE ROOT
ἀπορίᾳ
aporia
GROWS FROM
ἀ- + πόρος (a- + poros)
πόρος means a passage or way through; ἀ- removes it, yielding “without a passage.”
“Perplexity” can sound like mental confusion, but ἀπορία pictures being without a πόρος, a way through. The nations are caught in a felt no-way-through, making constriction part of the scene itself.
ALSO GROWS
poros: Passage, route, or way through.
πόρος
The word hidden inside ἀπορία makes the loss of a clear way forward visible.
aporeō: To be at a loss or have no way forward.
ἀπορέω
This related verb appears in 2 Corinthians 4:8, where being perplexed is distinguished from being utterly without hope.
συνοχή
synochē
GROWS FROM
συνέχω
synechō
To hold together, press in, or constrain.
The word for distress carries the image of pressure closing in. Beside ἀπορία, it names both the compression around the nations and their sense that no route leads out.
ALSO GROWS
synechei: Constrains or presses.
συνέχει
In 2 Corinthians 5:14, the same verb describes love as constraining; here the related word gives distress the feel of being pressed in.
echō: To have or hold.
ἔχω
This verb supplies the holding sense within συνέχω, deepening the image of pressure that holds people in its grip.
THE PATTERN
Prophetic upheaval is pictured through the failure of familiar lights above and the shaking of the world below.
For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;THE THREAD
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;“Perplexed” translates a form of the same Greek word family as Luke’s ἀπορίᾳ: being at a loss, without a clear passage. The connection shows that the word names the experience of not seeing a way through; it does not itself say that despair is the final word.
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