What Does James 4:13 Mean in the King James?
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 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 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.
“continue” 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.
“get 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.
Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall 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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