What Does Romans 5:4 Mean in the King James?
And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
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
What English calls “experience” is tested character, the genuineness that makes hope more than a wish.
THE MEANING
Endurance under pressure leaves character tested and shown to be genuine. Hope grows from what has held through the testing, so it has ground beneath it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that pressure can only wear you down and that hope must be wishful thinking. Here, endurance yields tested character, and tested character gives hope a footing.
THE ROOT
δοκιμή
dokimē
GROWS FROM
δοκιμ-
dokim-
Testing or examination that establishes whether something is genuine and approved.
“experience” in this verse is dokimē. The word carries the sense of character that has been proved, not merely a collection of things you have experienced. Hope follows because endurance has left something tested and sound.
ALSO GROWS
dokimazō: Test, examine, or approve.
δοκιμάζω
It shows the testing within “experience”: what endures is examined and found genuine.
dokimos: Approved, proven, genuine.
δόκιμος
This names the quality that emerges from the testing, the character on which hope can rest.
ὑπομονή
hypomonē
GROWS FROM
μένω (menō), with ὑπό (hypo, under)
μένω (menō) means remain or stay; the compound carries the sense of remaining under.
This patience is endurance that remains under pressure, not simply waiting for time to pass. The verse’s movement is from what holds under pressure to character proved through it.
ALSO GROWS
hypomenō: Endure, remain under, or bear up.
ὑπομένω
The verb makes patience active: it is the staying that allows character to be tested.
epimenō: Continue, persist, or remain.
ἐπιμένω
This related compound echoes the root’s sense of remaining, illuminating endurance as continued presence through difficulty.
THE PATTERN
What is tested under pressure can emerge proven, giving hope a foundation.
For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:THE THREAD
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;Romans 5:3 names the start of the same sequence: tribulation works patience, ὑπομονή (hypomonē, endurance that remains under). Verse 4 shows what that endurance yields, tested character, and then hope.
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