What Does Matthew 19:10 Mean in the King James?
His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.
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 word translated “good” means “advantageous,” so the disciples are weighing marriage’s cost to them, not calling marriage evil.
THE MEANING
A bond that cannot be set aside casually can look like a poor bargain when the mind measures it by personal advantage. The disciples voice that calculation plainly: under this condition, marriage seems not to benefit them. The verse makes visible how quickly commitment becomes a ledger of cost.
THE ROOT
συμφέρει
sympherei
GROWS FROM
φέρ- (φέρω), with συν-
φέρω (pherō) means carry, bear, or bring; συν- (syn-) means together or with. Together they form συμφέρω (sympherō), commonly meaning to benefit or be advantageous.
English “good” can sound like a moral judgment about marriage, while συμφέρει asks whether it benefits or serves an outcome. The compound carries an image of bringing together beneath that established meaning, so the disciples’ line reads as a calculation of what the bond entails rather than a declaration that marriage is evil.
ALSO GROWS
sympheron: What benefits; what is advantageous.
σύμφερον
This cognate appears in 1 Corinthians 12:7, where the benefit is shared with the whole assembly; it shows that advantage can be measured beyond private convenience.
prospherō: Bring forward; offer.
προσφέρω
This compound shares the φέρω root and preserves its concrete sense of bringing, beneath the more idiomatic “be advantageous” in this verse.
THE PATTERN
In this word family, advantage names what serves an outcome or a shared good, even when an immediate cost is involved.
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.Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.THE THREAD
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.The Greek word translated “profit” shares the same root as the disciples’ “good” and points to benefit for the whole assembly. That connection makes their line visible as a personal cost calculation, not a verdict on the worth of every marriage.
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