What Does Matthew 14:7 Mean in the King James?
Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask.
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 oath makes an unnamed request feel already granted before it has even been made.
THE MEANING
A promise takes hold in the present before its price becomes visible: Herod binds his future giving to a request not yet spoken. Its unknown content does not keep the commitment abstract; his words already place the choice under oath.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a promise remains harmless while its terms are unknown: the commitment already reaches into the future act.
THE ROOT
ὡμολόγησεν
hōmologēsen
GROWS FROM
ὁμολογ (homolog-), from ὁμός (homos, same) + λέγω (legō, say)
ὁμολογέω (homologeō) means agree, acknowledge, or confess; its parts carry the sense of saying the same.
The verb rendered “promised” belongs to a word family that also means to acknowledge or confess. An oath makes the promise a word Herod openly owns before he knows what keeping it will entail.
ALSO GROWS
homologeō: Agree, acknowledge, or confess.
ὁμολογέω
This related verb shows that promising and openly acknowledging share a Greek word family.
homologia: Confession, acknowledgment, or agreement.
ὁμολογία
The noun keeps the same link between a spoken commitment and a position a person openly owns.
δοῦναι
dounai
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
δίδωμι (didōmi) means to give or grant; its compounds describe transfers between people.
“give” in this verse is dounai. The promised act is a transfer whose content is still unknown. In related forms, giving can mean handing something over or giving it back, so the oath commits Herod to a transfer before its cost is clear.
ALSO GROWS
paradidōmi: Hand over, deliver up, or betray.
παραδίδωμι
This compound shows how the same giving verb can name handing something or someone over.
apodidōmi: Give back, repay, or render what is due.
ἀποδίδωμι
Here the same verb describes a return transfer, underscoring that “give” places something in another’s hands.
THE PATTERN
A pledge can bind its speaker to an outcome whose shape is still unknown.
It is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy, and after vows to make enquiry.Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist’s head in a charger.THE THREAD
Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.The verb ὁμολογέω (homologeō, agree or acknowledge), translated “promised” in Matthew 14:7, is translated “confess” twice here. The shared word family links an oath to a word openly owned: Herod commits himself before he knows what following through will cost.
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