What Does Luke 3:9 Mean in the King James?
And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
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 axe is already at the root: judgment reaches the source of the tree, while its fruit reveals what that source produces.
THE MEANING
The verse places the reader before an urgent reality: what a life produces is visible, and the cut reaches beneath its branches to its source. Its consequence is severe and present, the tree that bears no good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.
THE ROOT
ῥίζα
rhiza
GROWS FROM
ῥιζ-
The root or source from which the tree grows.
English can make “root” sound like just one part of a tree, but ῥίζα points to the source beneath all its branches. With the axe laid there, the judgment reaches the tree’s sustaining origin; its fruit shows what that source is producing.
ALSO GROWS
rhizoō: To take root or become rooted.
ῥιζόω
This branch names the tree’s establishment below the surface, the level where the axe is laid.
ekrizoō: To uproot or tear out by the root.
ἐκριζόω
This branch shows the force of reaching the root: the removal takes hold at the source, not just at a visible branch.
THE PATTERN
What a tree’s root sustains becomes visible in its fruit, and fruitlessness brings the whole tree under judgment.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.THE THREAD
For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.Romans uses the same Greek word for “root,” ῥίζα (rhiza), and shows the root’s condition extending into the branches. Luke’s image moves toward the root from the other side: the axe reaches the source when the tree bears no good fruit.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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