What Does Romans 5:14 Mean in the King James?
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
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
Death’s reign reaches people who never repeat Adam’s particular breach, because Adam is a pattern pointing toward the one to come.
THE MEANING
You live within a human condition whose reach exceeds whether you repeat Adam’s exact crossing. Adam (אָדָם, adam, the ground-being, linked to אֲדָמָה, adamah, ground) and Moses (מֹשֶׁה, Moshe, drawn out, associated with מָשָׁה, mashah, to draw out) mark the span named here. Adam is also a pattern pointing toward the coming one, whose arrival changes the direction of that story.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Death’s reach depends only on personally repeating Adam’s exact transgression.
THE ROOT
τύπος
typos
GROWS FROM
τυπ-
A struck mark or impression; by extension, a pattern or model.
“figure” in this verse is typos. Adam is more than a comparison: he is an impression that points toward the one to come. The word holds both the mark left behind and a pattern that can be recognized ahead.
ALSO GROWS
typtō: To strike or beat.
τύπτω
The shared root carries the image of contact leaving a mark.
typoi: Patterns or examples.
τύποι
In 1 Corinthians 10:6, the same word describes examples that shape how the present is understood.
ἐβασίλευσεν
ebasileusen
GROWS FROM
βασιλ-
To rule as king.
“reigned” in this verse is ebasileusen. Death is described as exercising rule, not merely arriving as a final event. The word frames death as a dominion with reach across people who did not repeat Adam’s specific breach.
ALSO GROWS
basileus: King.
βασιλεύς
The verb shares the language of a king exercising authority.
basileia: Reign or governance.
βασιλεία
This related noun makes the sense of an active rule explicit.
ἁμαρτήσαντας
hamartēsantas
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
Missing or failing to reach the mark.
Here “sinned” is the language of missing, while Adam’s παράβασις (parabasis, crossing beyond a boundary) names a specific breach. The distinction lets the verse say death’s reign reaches people whose missing does not repeat Adam’s particular crossing.
ALSO GROWS
hamartanō: To miss or fail.
ἁμαρτάνω
This verb supplies the word family’s basic sense of missing.
hamartia: Missing or failure.
ἁμαρτία
The familiar noun shares the same root and keeps the sense of missing visible beneath the English rendering.
THE PATTERN
A representative pattern can mark a condition that reaches beyond those who repeat its initiating breach, while a coming representative opens its reversal.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;THE THREAD
Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.The Greek word τύποι (typoi, patterns or examples) here is the same word used for Adam as a “figure.” It reveals that a figure is a pattern whose meaning reaches beyond the moment it first appears.
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