What Does Luke 5:37 Mean in the King James?

And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.

Luke 5:37 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

Fresh wine expands, and a worn vessel that can no longer yield turns its arrival into a double loss.

THE MEANING

The verse speaks in the present as a collision between expanding contents and a form that has lost its flexibility. The wine spills, and the vessel perishes too; the mismatch costs both what is carried and what carries it.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The verse undoes the belief that a vessel’s past usefulness guarantees it can safely hold what arrives now.

THE ROOT

νέον

neon

GROWS FROM

νέος

neos

fresh, young, new

The word’s family also speaks of youth, so “new” carries the feel of freshness rather than a mere date. As new wine ferments and expands, its freshness presses against the vessel holding it.

ALSO GROWS

neotēs: youth

νεότης

This related word makes the family’s connection between newness and youth visible; the wine is fresh and still active.

neōteros: younger

νεώτερος

This comparative form carries the same sense of youth and recency, sharpening the contrast with the aged vessel.

παλαιούς

palaious

GROWS FROM

παλαιός

palaios

old, aged

This word family describes age and what has grown old. The contrast is between fresh, expanding wine and a vessel whose age has left it unable to yield.

ALSO GROWS

palai: long ago, formerly

πάλαι

This related adverb carries the sense of what belongs to an earlier time, echoing the vessel’s aged state.

palaioō: grow old, make old, become obsolete

παλαιόω

This verb shows age as a process that can leave something obsolete, illuminating why the old vessel cannot contain the wine.

ἀπολοῦνται

apolountai

GROWS FROM

ἀπόλλυμι

apollymi

lose, destroy, perish

“perish” in this verse is apolountai. The word family carries both perishing and being lost. The loss reaches the vessel as well as the spilled wine: the container itself is lost when it fails to hold what it carries.

ALSO GROWS

apōleia: loss, destruction

ἀπώλεια

This noun makes the consequence of the rupture explicit: what is lost includes the vessel and its contents.

apolōlōs: lost, perished

ἀπολωλώς

This related form describes what has become lost, showing the vessel’s fate as loss rather than simple aging.

THE PATTERN

A vessel’s condition shapes what it can hold and how it serves.

Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent; it is ready to burst like new bottles.

Job 32:19 · KJVA wine vessel without room for pressure is ready to burst, showing how capacity shapes what it can hold.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

2 Corinthians 4:7 · KJVTreasure is carried in fragile vessels, making the nature and limits of the container part of the image.

If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.

2 Timothy 2:21 · KJVA vessel’s condition is tied to what it is fit to do.

THE THREAD

But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.

Luke 5:38 · KJV

The Greek adjective ⁨νέον⁩ (neon, “new”) appears in both verses. This verse gives the pairing that preserves both the fresh wine and the vessel.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us