What Does Luke 14:34 Mean in the King James?
Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?
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 Greek verb for salt losing its savor is also used for becoming foolish: when its defining quality goes dull, its purpose goes with it.
THE MEANING
Salt is good because it carries savor; its worth is in the quality it gives. When that quality goes dull, no seasoning can make it salt again. The verse speaks now of a purpose whose defining substance has drained away: its name alone cannot restore its use.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an outward identity or title can keep something useful after the quality that gives it purpose has disappeared.
THE ROOT
μωρανθῇ
mōranthē
GROWS FROM
μωρ-
Become dull or insipid; be foolish.
The verb translated “lost his savour” belongs to the same Greek word family used for becoming foolish. The language joins tastelessness with dull judgment: when what gives something its distinctive force goes flat, it becomes unfit for its purpose.
ALSO GROWS
mōros: Foolish, dull.
μωρός
The same word family describes the foolish man in Matthew 7:26, linking dullness of taste with dullness of discernment.
mōria: Foolishness.
μωρία
This noun names foolishness in 1 Corinthians 1:18; it carries the same family association between lost sense and lost force.
ἅλας
halas
GROWS FROM
ἁλ-
Salt or brine; this Greek word family is not a Hebrew three-consonant root.
Greek keeps salt itself and the action of salting in one word family. The question turns on whether the salt still carries its own defining quality; once that is gone, outside seasoning cannot supply its salt-character.
ALSO GROWS
halizō: To salt.
ἁλίζω
Mark 9:49 uses this verb for being salted, showing the same family naming salt as both substance and action.
halykos: Salty, briny.
ἁλυκός
James 3:12 uses this word for salt water, naming the quality that Luke’s salt has lost.
THE PATTERN
A thing serves its purpose through the defining quality it carries; its name alone cannot replace that quality when it is gone.
Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.THE THREAD
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,Luke uses μωραίνω for salt becoming tasteless; Romans uses the same verb for people becoming fools. The shared word joins dull taste and dull judgment: when what should carry discerning force loses its substance, it becomes useless.
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