What Does Romans 1:13 Mean in the King James?
Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
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 blocked visit still carries a living aim: fruit appearing among you.
THE MEANING
A real purpose can meet repeated delay and remain alive. Its aim is fruit among you too, something that takes form in shared life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A delay does not prove the purpose was false or that nothing can grow before the expected arrival.
THE ROOT
καρπόν
karpon
GROWS FROM
καρπ
karp
fruit, produce, yield
“fruit” in this verse is karpon. The Greek stem links fruitfulness and fruitlessness through the same seed. Paul’s hope is more than making a visit: he seeks a yield that appears among the people themselves.
ALSO GROWS
karpophoreō: to bear fruit
καρποφορέω
This branch makes explicit the growing and producing contained in the fruit Paul hopes to find among them.
akarpos: fruitless, unproductive
ἄκαρπος
Its shared stem shows the opposite possibility: the same measure of life can appear as fruit or as its absence.
προεθέμην
proethemēn
GROWS FROM
τίθημι
tithēmi
to put, place, set
“purposed” in this verse is proethemēn. The verb pictures purpose as something set before oneself as an intended direction. Beside the word for hindrance, that image lets the aim remain visible even when movement toward it is blocked.
ALSO GROWS
tithēmi: to put or set
τίθημι
This is the underlying verb: purpose carries the sense of setting an intended course before oneself.
prothesis: a setting forth; purpose
πρόθεσις
This noun preserves the same image of an intention set forth, clarifying the kind of purpose named here.
protithēmi: to set before; propose
προτίθημι
This related verb makes the underlying picture of setting an aim before oneself especially clear.
ἐκωλύθην
ekōlythēn
GROWS FROM
κωλύω
kōlyō
to hinder, prevent, hold back
Here the KJV’s “let” carries its older sense of being hindered. The Greek names an actual obstruction to the visit, while the stated aim of finding fruit among the readers remains beside it.
ALSO GROWS
kōlyō: to hinder or prevent
κωλύω
This is the verb behind the passage’s statement that the speaker was held back.
akōlytōs: without hindrance, unhindered
ἀκωλύτως
The negative form makes the shared idea visible by naming movement free of the obstruction present here.
THE PATTERN
Fruit can emerge through a process whose visible arrival is delayed.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.THE THREAD
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.Romans 1:13 hopes for καρπόν, fruit, among the readers; Romans 7:4 uses the same Greek root in “bring forth fruit.” The repeated word opens the aim further: this fruit among you is also fruit unto God.
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