What Does James 4:13 Mean?
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and stay there a year, and trade, and gain."
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
Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:THE KEY
The hidden assumption is that a year can already be made, traveled through, and turned into profit before it arrives.
THE MEANING
This verse catches the mind speaking of the future as a possession: a route, a year, a market, a return. Each “we will” makes the next step sound settled before even one day arrives. The plan is real as a desire, but its time and outcome are not yet in your hand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is: “If I can map the year, the year is mine to spend and its outcome is mine to secure.” This verse breaks that certainty where planning quietly becomes ownership.
THE ROOT
ποιήσομεν
poiēsomen
GROWS FROM
ποιε-
poie-
Do, make, bring about.
“stay” in this verse is poiēsomen. The ordinary Greek verb for “do” or “make” carries the phrase about a year: they speak as if they will make that year theirs through their activity. The word reveals how confidently the plan fills time that has not yet arrived.
ALSO GROWS
poiēma: A thing made; a work.
ποίημα
The shared root keeps the year tied to what they expect to do and produce within it.
poieō: To do, make, or bring about.
ποιέω
This is the verb family behind both their planned year and the ordinary actions that fill it.
κερδήσομεν
kerdēsomen
GROWS FROM
κερδ-
kerd-
Gain, profit, or advantage.
“gain” in this verse is kerdēsomen. The plan does not stop at arriving or staying; it already includes the result they expect to secure. Profit sits in the same confident sequence as the journey, as though its outcome were settled too.
ALSO GROWS
kerdos: Gain or profit.
κέρδος
The noun names the expected result already built into their plan.
kerdainō: To gain, win, or profit.
κερδαίνω
The verb family makes the promised return an active part of the imagined future.
πορευσόμεθα
poreusometha
GROWS FROM
πορευ-
poreu-
Go, proceed, travel.
This verb opens the itinerary: they name where they will go, how long they will stay, and what they will do there. English “go” can sound like a single step, but here it belongs to a whole future course spoken as certain.
ALSO GROWS
poreia: A journey or course.
πορεία
It shows the wider sense of movement along a route, not merely a destination named in passing.
ekporeuomai: Go out or proceed forth.
ἐκπορεύομαι
This related form carries the same movement outward that begins their planned venture.
THE PATTERN
A human plan becomes false certainty when it treats unpossessed time and its expected yield as settled.
Do not praise yourself over tomorrow, for you do not know what the day will bear.So do not be pulled apart over tomorrow, for tomorrow will be pulled apart over its own things. Sufficient for the day is its evil.But God said to him, Mindless one, this night your living soul will be demanded back from you. Then whose will those things be that you have made ready?THE THREAD
Instead, you ought to say, "If the LORD wills, we will live, and do this or that."The verb for “do” appears in both verses: the group says it will make a year there, then the next verse places even doing this or that inside “If the Lord will.” The passage leaves room for plans while exposing that neither life nor its outcomes are already possessed.
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