What Does Romans 1:26 Mean?
For this, God gave them over to weightless passions, for their women exchanged the natural use for what lies beside nature.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:THE KEY
The Greek repeats the word for nature across “natural use” and “against nature,” making the exchange hinge on a contrast English partly hides.
THE MEANING
This verse says God hands people over to passions of dishonor; it says their women exchange the natural use for what it calls contrary to nature. The Greek repeats the nature word across both sides of that exchange, so the claim turns on an asserted order of nature rather than on desire alone. It speaks now as a stark claim about what desire can lead a person into.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It challenges the belief that desire is self-justifying merely because it is felt: here, desire can be named as dishonoring and contrary to nature.
THE ROOT
φυσικὴν
physikēn
GROWS FROM
φύω
phyō
To grow, bring forth, or come into being.
Greek places φυσικὴν, “natural,” beside παρὰ φύσιν, “against nature,” repeating the same word family on both sides. The KJV preserves the contrast, but its shift from adjective to noun makes that repeated root easier to miss.
ALSO GROWS
physis: Nature; the inherent character or course of a thing.
φύσις
This is the noun repeated in the phrase “against nature,” linking it directly to “natural use.”
physikos: Natural; belonging to nature.
φυσικός
This adjective shares the word family that frames the verse’s contrast.
παρέδωκεν
paredōken
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give, grant, or put into another’s hands.
“gave them over” in this verse is paredōken. The verb is παραδίδωμι, “to hand over,” built on δίδωμι with the prefix παρά. Romans 1 repeats this handover at verses 24 and 28, making it a structural refrain in the chapter.
ALSO GROWS
paradidōmi: To hand over or deliver.
παραδίδωμι
This compound verb gives “gave them up” its sense of being handed over.
dosis: A giving or gift.
δόσις
This noun shares the give-root beneath the verse’s language of handover.
πάθη
pathē
GROWS FROM
πάσχω
paschō
To undergo, experience, or suffer.
“weightless passions” in this verse is pathē. KJV’s “affections” can sound like a neutral preference, while πάθη names passions and belongs to a word family tied to experiencing or undergoing. The verse names these passions by their dishonoring effect, not simply as inner labels.
ALSO GROWS
pathos: Passion, suffering, or an experience that befalls someone.
πάθος
It shows the word family behind the verse’s description of passions.
paschō: To experience or suffer.
πάσχω
This verb is the root connection that opens the depth inside “affections.”
THE PATTERN
When people refuse a way offered to them, Scripture depicts them being handed over to the desire or course they follow.
Therefore God gave them over in the cravings of their hearts into uncleanness, for their bodies to be made weightless among themselves.So I sent them away in the stiffness of their heart, and they walked in their own plans.Who, having gone numb, have handed themselves over to unbridled acts, to work every soiling in grasping for more.THE THREAD
Who, having gone numb, have handed themselves over to unbridled acts, to work every soiling in grasping for more.Both verses use forms of παραδίδωμι, “to hand over.” Romans names God as the one who hands people over, while Ephesians says people hand themselves over; the shared verb reveals consequence and self-surrender as two views of the same movement.
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