What Does Matthew 5:29 Mean in the King James?
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.
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 becomes a snare puts the whole body at risk, so the verse weighs losing one member against the ruin of the whole.
THE MEANING
Your sight can become a point of entrapment that draws your whole self toward destruction. The command is bodily and severe: losing one member is called preferable to the whole body being cast into hell. The verse holds that danger in the present, refusing to treat a source of stumbling as trivial.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you can preserve whatever repeatedly trips you and the rest of you will remain untouched.
THE ROOT
σκανδαλίζω
skandalizō
GROWS FROM
σκάνδαλον
skandalon
Trap, snare-trigger; something that catches and trips.
The verb carries the image of a trap being sprung, giving “offend” the force of something that catches and trips you. The eye is named as a possible snare, so its influence reaches beyond the single member to the whole body.
ALSO GROWS
skandalon: Trap, snare-trigger.
σκάνδαλον
The related noun holds the trap image behind the verb: a trigger catches and trips what passes over it.
skandalizō: Cause to stumble, ensnare.
σκανδαλίζω
This is the verb used here; the eye can become what catches the person and brings a fall.
ἀπόλλυμι
apollymi
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
apollymi
To lose, ruin, destroy; to perish.
Here, “perish” carries the force of both loss and destruction. That gives the sentence its unsettling scale: the loss of one member is weighed against the whole body being cast into ruin.
ALSO GROWS
apolētai: May perish, may be lost.
ἀπόληται
This is the form used for the one member whose loss is weighed against the whole body.
apōleia: Loss, destruction.
ἀπώλεια
This related noun holds together the two dimensions of the warning: what is lost and what is destroyed.
THE PATTERN
What governs perception can shape the condition of the whole person.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.THE THREAD
Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.The same stumbling verb appears, while the image widens from the eye to the hand and foot. The parallel shows that the warning reaches any member that becomes a snare, with the fate of the whole body still in view.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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