What Does Matthew 12:44 Mean in the King James?
Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
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
What has been swept out can return to a space that has only been cleaned, not filled.
THE MEANING
When something destructive leaves your life, its absence by itself is not wholeness: the house is swept and orderly, but still vacant. What left can return to the same opening, and the condition can grow worse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that once the harmful thing is gone and the surface is in order, the danger is over.
THE ROOT
κενήν
kenēn
GROWS FROM
κεν-
ken-
Empty, vacant, lacking what would fill or complete a space.
The same word family reaches from a vacant house to something made void and to “empty glory.” The room’s vacancy is more than a clean surface: nothing has taken the place of what left.
ALSO GROWS
kenóō: To empty or make void
κενόω
This branch makes the vacancy active: something can be emptied out, leaving a space behind.
kenodoxía: Empty glory; vainglory
κενοδοξία
The word family also names an appearance of worth that lacks substance, echoing the difference between a house that looks finished and one that is occupied.
κεκοσμημένην
kekosmēménēn
GROWS FROM
κοσμ-
kosm-
To arrange, order, or adorn.
“garnished” in this verse is kekosmēménēn. The Greek keeps arrangement distinct from occupancy: the house can be κοσμέω, ordered and adorned, while remaining κενός, vacant. What looks complete on the outside has not changed what is missing within.
ALSO GROWS
kósmos: Order, arrangement; the world
κόσμος
The branch carries the sense of an ordered whole, while this house shows that order alone does not tell you what inhabits a space.
kósmios: Orderly, well-arranged
κόσμιος
This branch emphasizes the tidy appearance that the verse places beside emptiness.
THE PATTERN
A space is changed by what fills it, not by what has merely been cleared away.
And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.THE THREAD
And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.Luke repeats the same Greek words for “swept” and “garnished,” carrying the image of a house made orderly. Matthew makes the vacancy explicit: arrangement has not filled the space.
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