What Does Romans 10:7 Mean in the King James?
Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
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 mission to fetch the Anointed One out of death collapses under one fact: Christ is already risen.
THE MEANING
The verse names the imagined assignment: enter the deep and bring the Anointed One back from among the dead. Its question exposes a mission no human can perform, because Christ has already been brought through death. The deep is real, but it is not where Christ remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that Christ’s presence or deliverance depends on a person reaching into death to retrieve him.
THE ROOT
καταβήσεται
katabḗsetai
GROWS FROM
βαίνω
baínō
To step, go, or move.
“descend” in this verse is katabḗsetai. The Greek sets going down beside the proposed act of bringing Christ up. The shared movement-root, with its direction changed by prefixes, reveals the imagined human journey across death’s boundary.
ALSO GROWS
katabaínō: Go down, descend.
καταβαίνω
This is the verb behind the verse’s descent into the deep.
anabaínō: Go up, ascend.
ἀναβαίνω
The same movement-root turns upward, echoing the imagined effort to bring Christ up from the dead.
ἀναγαγεῖν
anagageîn
GROWS FROM
ἄγω
ágō
To lead, bring, or carry.
“bring up” in this verse is anagageîn. The word carries an upward direction: the question imagines someone leading Christ up from among the dead. The verse puts that act inside a question about an unreachable human task.
ALSO GROWS
anágō: Lead or bring up.
ἀνάγω
This is the verb used for the imagined bringing up of Christ.
exágō: Lead or bring out.
ἐξάγω
It shares the same root of leading or bringing, with the direction shifted to out.
Χριστόν
Christón
GROWS FROM
χρίω
chríō
To anoint, apply oil.
“Christ” in this verse is Christón. The Greek title names him as the Anointed One; it is not simply a surname. The question concerns whether the Anointed One can be brought up from death.
ALSO GROWS
Christós: Anointed one.
Χριστός
The title in this verse names his nature as the one anointed.
chrîsma: Anointing.
χρῖσμα
This noun shares the root of the title, linking the Anointed One to the act of anointing.
THE PATTERN
What God makes present does not require a human being to cross an impossible distance and retrieve it.
Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.THE THREAD
Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?The question echoes Deuteronomy’s image of crossing the sea to bring the word near. Here that imagined crossing becomes a descent into death to bring Christ up; the impossible human quest points toward what is already accomplished.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us
