What Does Matthew 4:13 Mean in the King James?
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:
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 verse makes the borderland a home for presence: Jesus arrives there to dwell.
THE MEANING
Here, presence takes a specific address: it leaves Nazareth and settles in Capernaum, along the sea and within borderland territory. That movement places the sacred in an inhabited edge; the following line calls this very region the place where light shines into darkness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The sacred can only take up residence in familiar centers, never in a borderland or a place you might overlook.
THE ROOT
κατῴκησεν
katōikēsen
GROWS FROM
οἰκ
The Greek stem οἰκ- (oik-, house or dwelling) is carried by words for a home and inhabiting. κατῴκησεν means he settled or took up residence.
“dwelt” in this verse is katōikēsen. The verse uses a word built on the house-stem: Jesus does not merely touch this place in passing; he settles there. The root opens the scene as an act of inhabiting, so the borderland becomes a home for presence.
ALSO GROWS
oikos: house, household
οἶκος
The same stem names a house and the people who inhabit it, giving the act of dwelling a concrete, relational sense.
oikoumenē: the inhabited world
οἰκουμένη
The house-stem also reaches outward to the inhabited world; this local dwelling belongs to the larger image of presence inhabiting human space.
נָצְרַת
Natsrat
GROWS FROM
נצר
נצר (natsar) means to watch, guard, or keep; the name-form נָצְרַת (Natsrat, Nazareth) carries the name-nature of the watcher.
The place Jesus leaves carries the watcher’s name-nature. The verse’s movement from Nazareth to Capernaum is marked by names as well as geography: from the watcher-city toward a shoreline settlement.
ALSO GROWS
notser: one who watches, guards, or keeps
נֹצֵר
This keeper-form brings the watcher’s quality into view within the name Nazareth.
natsru: they guarded or kept
נָצְרוּ
The verb form makes watching an active keeping, echoing the name-nature of the place Jesus leaves.
כְּפַר נַחוּם
Kefar Naḥum
GROWS FROM
נחם
כְּפַר נַחוּם (Kefar Naḥum) means village of Nahum; נָחַם (naḥam) means to comfort or console, the root carried in the name Nahum.
“Capernaum” in this verse is Kefar Naḥum. The destination bears an echo of comfort in its name: Nahum comes from the root נחם (naḥam, comfort or console). Jesus settles in a place whose name carries that note of consolation.
ALSO GROWS
neḥamah: comfort, consolation
נֶחָמָה
This noun makes the root’s consoling quality explicit in the name carried by Capernaum.
menaḥem: one who comforts
מְנַחֵם
The agent-form shows comfort as a presence that consoles, resonating with Jesus taking up residence in the village.
THE PATTERN
God’s presence meets people within lived places marked by darkness, distance, or displacement.
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.THE THREAD
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,Matthew’s word for Jesus settling in Capernaum is κατοικέω (katoikeō, to dwell); Ephesians uses the same verb for Christ dwelling in hearts. The shared root carries the image from a geographical home to an inward one, as presence takes residence among people and within them.
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