What Does Matthew 18:9 Mean in the King James?
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
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 eye that ensnares you is portrayed as part of the trap itself, and the verse measures its removal against the greater cost of losing life.
THE MEANING
The eye that makes you fall is named as something to remove from yourself; entering life with one eye is better than keeping both and being cast into hell fire. The comparison gives life greater weight than bodily completeness while holding the cost of removal in full view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that bodily completeness is always worth preserving at any cost: the verse says losing an eye is better than being cast into hell fire with both.
THE ROOT
σκανδαλίζῃ
skandalizē
GROWS FROM
σκάνδαλον
skandalon
A trap trigger or stumbling block; the cause of a fall.
Here “offend” carries the sense of ensnaring and causing a fall, like a trigger releasing a trap. The verse makes sight part of the trap’s mechanism and gives the cost of escape full force.
ALSO GROWS
skandalon: A trap trigger, stumbling block, or cause of falling.
σκάνδαλον
This branch shows the danger as an entanglement that causes a fall, not simply an irritation.
skandalizō: To cause someone to stumble or become ensnared.
σκανδαλίζω
This is the verb used of the eye in the verse: the eye is described as causing the fall.
skandalizomai: To stumble or be ensnared.
σκανδαλίζομαι
This related form shows the other side of the same root: being caught by what causes the fall.
THE PATTERN
Life’s way forward requires releasing what entangles, even when letting go carries a cost.
Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,THE THREAD
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.Matthew 5:29 uses the same Greek verb for the eye that causes a fall, then places the loss of a member beside the danger of the whole body being cast into hell. Together, the verses repeat the same stark measure: life outweighs keeping the eye that ensnares.
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