What Does Luke 5:38 Mean in the King James?
But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.
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 calls the wine νέον (neon, young or fresh) and the wineskins καινούς (kainous, new or fresh in condition): both are preserved when the living contents meet a fitting vessel.
THE MEANING
What is newly alive and what receives it both need to remain whole. Preservation includes the wine and the wineskins, not just the container. The verse shows that what carries new life matters as much as what it carries.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a mismatch costs only the container: what it holds can spill too, so both are at stake.
THE ROOT
νέον
neon
GROWS FROM
νεο-
neos
Young, recent, or newly produced; new in time or age.
English uses “new” for both the wine and the wineskins, but the Greek describes the wine as νέον (neon, young or fresh). It gives the contents a sense of newness in age, distinct from the skins’ newness in condition.
ALSO GROWS
neotēs: Youth
νεότης
This branch carries the same quality of being young or fresh that marks the wine.
neōteros: Younger
νεώτερος
Its comparative form makes the time-and-age sense of this word family visible.
καινούς
kainous
GROWS FROM
καιν-
kain-
New, fresh, or renewed in quality or condition.
The skins are καινούς (kainous, new or fresh in condition), not described with the same Greek word as the wine. English hides the distinction: the verse pairs young wine with a vessel renewed to receive it.
ALSO GROWS
kainotēs: Newness
καινότης
This noun expresses the fresh condition named by the wineskins’ adjective.
anakainoō: Renew or make new
ἀνακαινόω
This branch shows the root’s connection to becoming fresh or new again.
συντηροῦνται
syntērountai
GROWS FROM
τηρέω
tēreō
Keep, guard, or watch over; συν- adds the sense of keeping together or intact.
The verb translated “preserved” is συντηρέω (syntēreō, keep intact), and its subject is both the wine and the skins. The wording makes preservation mutual: the vessel holds, and what it holds remains whole.
ALSO GROWS
tēreō: Keep, guard, or watch
τηρέω
This is the base verb behind the language of preservation.
tērēsis: Keeping or custody
τήρησις
This noun from the same family names the act of keeping something safe.
THE PATTERN
Life remains intact when its vessel is renewed to fit what it carries.
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.THE THREAD
But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.Luke uses the same Greek verb, συντηρέω (syntēreō, keep intact), for Mary keeping these things in her heart. Here, that same verb describes the wine and skins being preserved, linking what is held inwardly with what remains whole outwardly.
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