This article is part of a series on the changing meaning of English words and its impact on the King James Only debate. To see the introduction to this series, click The King James version and the changing use of words.

Words change over time. Some words drop out of use entirely. New words come into being that were unknown to previous generations. Perhaps most importantly, many words remain common but change in their meaning and usage. Terms that meant one thing even a few generations ago may now mean something completely different. In a sense, we still “know and use” the word, but we don’t mean the same thing when we say it today than was meant by past generations. These changes can impact how we read, understand, and apply older English writings without our even realizing that we are misunderstanding. We read today’s definitions into their words without even thinking about it and thus alter the meaning that the sentence conveys. For an example of this, let’s consider the word “incontinent.”

Men shall be incontinent

In 2 Timothy 3, Paul gives some stern warnings about what men will be like in the last days. Among the things he lists is that men shall be:

“Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,” (2 Timothy 3:3, KJV).

Most of this is quite clear, but one attribute seems oddly out of place. Why does Paul say that men will be “incontinent?” The rest of the description seems to be about the moral character of these men of the lasts days, yet here we’re instead told of an awkward medical condition they will have (i.e., they will be unable to control their bowels). While we can all agree that a future where men everywhere are defecating without restraint sounds horrible, such a prediction doesn’t seem to fit here with everything else Paul is talking about. The reason for this, of course, is that the word “incontinent” had a much broader usage in the past than it does today. In present-day usage, “incontinent” refers to the inability to restrain natural physical discharges of urine or feces. It is a medical term. In 1611, however, it was a general term for a lack of self-restraint. Someone morally lacking in self-control could, back then, quite naturally be called “incontinent” without confusion. That is all the KJV translators were trying to say.

Most English translations before the KJV followed William Tyndale in translating here that men shall be “rioters.”¹Tyndale New Testament, see also Miles Coverdale, the Matthew Bible, and the Great Bible The Bishops Bible, the direct predecessor of the KJV, similarly chose the word “riotous,” while the highly influential Geneva Bible rendered it as “intemperate.” It was the Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims translation that introduced “incontinent” to the passage, and the KJV followed suit. The word was a clear and accurate enough rendering for its day, though today it is prone to uncomfortable misunderstandings. Modern translators render the word in terms quite clear to us today:

“…Without self-control…” (NASB, ESV, NIV, NKJV, CSB, NET, King James Version 21st Century).

“…Unrestrained…” (MEV).

These are plain ways of saying exactly what the KJV translators were trying to say in the language of their day. Someday, terms like “restrained” or “self-control” may also take on new meanings, and these terms may then also need updating, but for today, these terms more clearly convey the actual meaning of the passage to modern readers.