What Does Romans 13:8 Mean in the King James?
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
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 leaves one debt permanently open: love is how the instruction itself reaches fullness.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you now as a life with many obligations, but one remains between you and another: love. As you love, the instruction is brought to fullness in the relationship.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A cleared account does not mean that nothing is owed: love remains a debt that cannot be discharged once and for all.
THE ROOT
ὀφείλετε
opheilete
GROWS FROM
ὀφειλ-
opheil-
To owe or be under obligation.
“owe” in this verse is opheilete. The verse does not erase obligation; it redirects it. Material debts can be settled, but love remains due wherever one person meets another.
ALSO GROWS
opheiletēs: Debtor
ὀφειλέτης
The debtor remains bound by an obligation, echoing the verse’s picture of love as an ongoing debt.
opheilēma: Debt; that which is owed
ὀφείλημα
This noun makes the image concrete: love is what remains owed to one another.
πεπλήρωκεν
peplērōken
GROWS FROM
πληρ-
plēr-
To fill, make full, or complete.
“fulfilled” in this verse is peplērōken. The verb carries the image of filling something to its fullness. Love does more than sit beside the instruction; it brings the instruction to its intended fullness in the relationship.
ALSO GROWS
plērēs: Full; complete
πλήρης
Its sense of fullness illuminates how love completes the instruction rather than treating it as a bare checklist.
plērōma: Fullness; full measure
πλήρωμα
This related form makes the verse’s image visible: love is the fullness toward which the instruction points.
νόμον
nomon
GROWS FROM
νομ-
nom-
Instruction; an established guide for conduct.
“law” in this verse is nomon. The verse presents instruction as something that reaches its fullness through love. Its focus is not rule-keeping in isolation, but what the instruction becomes in the way one person treats another.
ALSO GROWS
nomimos: Lawful; according to an established rule
νόμιμος
It preserves the sense of conduct measured against a guiding instruction.
nomothetēs: Lawgiver; one who establishes instruction
νομοθέτης
It shows the same word family reaching from instruction to the one who gives it.
THE PATTERN
Love brings instruction to its intended fullness through the way a person treats their neighbor.
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.THE THREAD
Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.The next verse gives the fullness its measure: love causes no harm to the neighbor. The two verses share a word family of filling and fullness, revealing love as what brings the instruction to completion.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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