What Does 1 Corinthians 9:7 Mean in the King James?
Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?
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
The verse places wages, fruit, and milk under one principle: the one who gives labor receives sustenance from the work.
THE MEANING
Work that protects, cultivates, or tends has a share in what it sustains. The soldier’s support, the planter’s fruit, and the shepherd’s milk show labor and provision belonging together. Receiving from the work is woven into the work itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that legitimate work must be done at the worker’s own expense: each question assumes the worker shares in the work’s provision.
THE ROOT
ποιμαίνει
poimainei
GROWS FROM
ποιμαιν-
poimain-
To shepherd or tend a flock.
“feedeth” in this verse is poimainei. The verb means tending as a shepherd, not merely feeding animals. Its word family binds shepherd and flock together, while the verse makes that bond material: the keeper eats from the flock’s own milk.
ALSO GROWS
poimēn: Shepherd.
ποιμήν
The noun names the person whose work the verb describes; the verse ties tending to the flock’s milk.
poimnē: Flock.
ποίμνη
This related word places the shepherd’s work within the community that sustains him.
καρπόν
karpon
GROWS FROM
καρπ-
karp-
Fruit, yield, or produce.
“fruit” in this verse is karpon. The word family names both the yield itself and the act of bearing yield. The vineyard’s output is the living result of the planter’s work, and the verse places the laborer in relation to that result.
ALSO GROWS
karpophoreō: To bear fruit.
καρποφορέω
The same root describes producing the yield that the planter eats.
akarpos: Fruitless; without fruit.
ἄκαρπος
Its opposite shows that this root concerns the presence or absence of a work’s yield.
THE PATTERN
Sustenance belongs within the work that produces or protects it.
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.THE THREAD
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;The Greek verb translated “feedeth” here appears again as “Feed” in 1 Peter 5:2. There, the flock is tended willingly and without greed; here, provision from the flock is treated as part of ordinary care, distinguishing sustenance from motive.
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