What Does Matthew 8:29 Mean in the King James?
And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?
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 Greek word for “torment” shares a word-family with the touchstone used to test metal, so the encounter carries an echo of exposure as well as pain.
THE MEANING
Destructive powers recognize Jesus and fear what his arrival means. Their question about “the time” treats reckoning as real while protesting that it has come too soon; recognition and resistance stand together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that destructive power sets its own terms: even the voices resisting Jesus recognize an authority and a time beyond themselves.
THE ROOT
βασανίσαι
basanisai
GROWS FROM
βασαν-
The Greek stem βασαν- (basan-) is associated with βάσανος (básanos), a touchstone used to test metal; the word-family also came to name examination under torture and torment.
The word-family holds an old image of testing with a stone beneath its later sense of torture. Here, “torment” names the suffering they fear, while the history of the word lets exposure echo beneath the English.
ALSO GROWS
básanos: Touchstone; also torture or torment.
βάσανος
This cognate preserves the touchstone image in the same word-family as βασανίσαι.
basanismós: Torment or torture.
βασανισμός
This related noun uses the same βασαν- stem for the torment feared in the verse.
καιροῦ
kairou
GROWS FROM
καιρ-
The Greek stem καιρ- (kair-) names a season, occasion, or fitting moment.
The phrase πρὸ καιροῦ (pro kairou, “before the time”) places the encounter against a moment they consider still ahead. Their protest itself reveals an awareness of a boundary and its timing.
ALSO GROWS
kairós: Season, occasion, or fitting time.
καιρός
καιροῦ is the form of this noun used in the verse.
kairios: Timely or opportune.
καίριος
This related word carries the same stem into the sense of what arrives at a fitting moment, sharpening the force of “before the time.”
THE PATTERN
Hostile powers remain subject to a boundary and a time beyond themselves.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.THE THREAD
And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.Mark uses βασανίσῃς (basanísēs, “torment”), from the same βασαν- stem. The repeated word makes the fear audible across both scenes: these voices recognize Jesus and plead against the ordeal they associate with his presence.
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