What Does Mark 13:18 Mean in the King James?
And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.
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 verse treats escape as necessary, but refuses to pretend that every way out costs the same.
THE MEANING
When escape becomes necessary, timing changes its cost. Winter adds cold, exposure, and difficulty to an already urgent departure. Leaving may be necessary, and the conditions of leaving still matter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that once an exit exists, the danger and hardship are over.
THE ROOT
φυγή
phygē
GROWS FROM
φεύγω
pheugō
to flee, escape
The Greek noun for “flight” belongs to the same word family as the verb “flee.” That shared seed keeps the verse concrete: it concerns movement away from danger, and the conditions under which that escape happens.
ALSO GROWS
pheugō: To move away from danger or threat.
φεύγω
This verb is the action contained in “flight”; the verse concerns an actual departure, not an abstract idea of safety.
phygas: A person who has fled.
φυγάς
This related word shows how flight can become a person’s exposed condition, making the hardships of the journey matter.
THE PATTERN
Escape can be a real path through danger while the route and conditions still shape its cost.
And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.THE THREAD
And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship,Mark’s noun φυγή (phygē), “flight,” shares its word family with φεύγω (pheugō), “flee,” used here. The echo makes escape a concrete act in immediate danger, where the way out and its conditions can carry their own risks.
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