What Does Luke 8:8 Mean in the King James?
And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
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 makes hearing visible: what is truly received becomes a harvest many times larger than the seed.
THE MEANING
The word reaches you as seed, and where it is received, its life rises into fruit beyond the measure of what was planted. The closing call presses the image inward: having ears is not yet the same as hearing in a way that lets the word take root.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that hearing is finished when sound reaches the ear dissolves here: hearing becomes visible in what grows from the word.
THE ROOT
καρπόν
karpon
GROWS FROM
καρπ
karp-
Fruit, produce, yield.
The Greek word for fruit names the yield that emerges from what was planted. The harvest is not separate from the seed’s life; it is that life made visible and multiplied.
ALSO GROWS
karpophoreō: Bear fruit.
καρποφορέω
The same fruit-stem becomes the act of carrying fruit, linking the verse’s yield to an ongoing process.
akarpos: Fruitless, without fruit.
ἄκαρπος
This opposite branch makes the root’s focus clear: the question is whether the planted life reaches a yield.
ἀκούω
akouō
GROWS FROM
ἀκου
akou-
Hear, listen, attend to.
The verse repeats the same verb in “to hear” and “let him hear.” The echo joins receiving the sound to attending to it, while the fruit shows what that hearing becomes.
ALSO GROWS
akoē: Hearing; a report or message heard.
ἀκοή
This branch names both the act of hearing and what reaches the listener, joining the word’s arrival to its reception.
hypakouō: Heed, obey.
ὑπακούω
This word builds heedfulness from the same hearing-root, showing how hearing can extend into response.
THE PATTERN
A received life becomes visible through its fruit, which can exceed the smallness of its beginning.
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.I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.THE THREAD
But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.Luke 8:15 uses the same Greek word family, καρπός (karpos, fruit), and opens the image of the good ground. Hearing and holding the word continue into fruit, with patience; the hundredfold harvest is the growth of a process.
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