What Does Matthew 19:3 Mean in the King James?
The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
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 question tests whether release can be made limitless: whether a man may send his wife away for every cause.
THE MEANING
Here, release is placed under scrutiny: can a husband dismiss his wife for any cause at all? “For every cause” stretches permission toward an unlimited rule, making the scope of release the point at issue. The verse speaks wherever a reason is treated as enough simply because it can be named.
THE ROOT
ἀπολῦσαι
apolysai
GROWS FROM
λύω (λυ-)
Loosen, untie, release.
“put away” in this verse is apolysai. The verb here is ἀπολῦσαι, an infinitive of ἀπολύω: to release, dismiss, or send away. Its root λύω means to loosen, while ἀπό adds the sense of away; the question presses whether any cause can serve as grounds for that release.
ALSO GROWS
lysis: Loosening, release, or dissolution.
λύσις
This noun carries the root’s basic image of something being loosened, revealing the concrete action inside “put away.”
apólysis: Dismissal or release.
ἀπόλυσις
This related noun makes the sense of sending away explicit and echoes the act the question asks to permit.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places the sending away of a spouse beside its grounds and consequences, rather than treating it as unbounded permission.
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.THE THREAD
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:Simeon uses the same verb, ἀπολύω, when he says the Lord now lets him depart in peace. The shared root reveals the sense of release inside “put away”; here, the surrounding words describe a peaceful departure.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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