What Does Luke 6:43 Mean in the King James?

For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Luke 6:43 · KJV

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 fruit is the tree’s hidden nature made visible.

THE MEANING

What lives at your center takes shape in what comes from you. The fruit makes the inner source visible in ordinary outcomes, so the two cannot be permanently separated. What appears outwardly reveals the life within.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie that what you express has nothing to do with what is rooted in you, or that a source can keep producing its opposite forever.

THE ROOT

ἀγαθὸν

agathon

GROWS FROM

ἀγαθ-

agath-

Good, beneficial; a quality associated with well-being.

The same stem describes both what is good and the act of doing good, so goodness is more than a label: it expresses itself in what it produces. The tree’s inward quality becomes visible in its yield.

ALSO GROWS

agathopoieō: Do good; act beneficially.

ἀγαθοποιέω

The same stem moves from the quality of being good to the action that carries goodness outward.

agathōsynē: Goodness; generous virtue.

ἀγαθωσύνη

This noun names the quality that the verse pictures as active and fruitful, rather than detached from its effects.

καρπόν

karpon

GROWS FROM

καρπ-

karp-

Fruit, produce; what a living source yields.

The fruit-word also appears in words for bearing fruit and being fruitless, making yield a sign of whether a source is productive. The image holds the outcome together with the life that produces it.

ALSO GROWS

karpophoreō: Bear fruit; be fruitful.

καρποφορέω

This verb turns the noun’s image into an ongoing process of yielding.

akarpos: Fruitless; unproductive.

ἄκαρπος

The same fruit-stem names the absence of yield, clarifying how directly the verse links a source with what it brings forth.

THE PATTERN

A living source reproduces its kind in what it yields.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

Genesis 1:11 · KJVThe earth’s growth yields fruit according to its own kind, just as the tree’s nature appears in its fruit.

Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.

James 3:12 · KJVA tree or spring yields what corresponds to its source; it does not produce its opposite.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 · KJVThe qualities named appear as the fruit of an inner source.

THE THREAD

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

Luke 6:45 · KJV

The same Greek word for “good” appears here: ⁨ἀγαθός⁩ (agathos), meaning “good” or “beneficial.” The image moves from tree to heart: what comes outwardly is the visible yield of what is already within.

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