What Does Mark 4:14 Mean in the King James?

The sower soweth the word.

Mark 4:14 · 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 Greek repeats the sowing root in both “sower” and “soweth”: the word arrives as seed placed in ground.

THE MEANING

The word reaches you as a living beginning, planted before its growth is visible. Its arrival is already a sowing; what unfolds comes after the seed meets the ground.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that the word only counts when it arrives as a finished outcome: here it comes in seed-form, with its fruit still ahead.

THE ROOT

σπείρων

speirōn

GROWS FROM

⁨σπειρ-⁩ (with ⁨σπορ-⁩ in related noun forms)

To sow or scatter seed.

“sower / soweth” in this verse is speirōn. The sower and the act of sowing are forms of the same Greek verb: literally, “the sowing one sows.” The verse’s word is presented as seed being planted, a beginning whose growth is still to come.

ALSO GROWS

speirō: To sow, scatter seed

σπείρω

This is the verb behind both “sower” and “soweth,” binding the one who plants to the act of planting.

sporos: Seed

σπόρος

This related noun from the same sowing word family names what is planted, making seed the inner image of the word’s arrival.

THE PATTERN

The word enters as something planted, carrying an effect that unfolds beyond the moment it is sown.

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Isaiah 55:11 · KJVThe word that goes forth carries an effect that comes to completion, like seed whose growth follows its planting.

Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

James 1:21 · KJVThe word is described as engrafted within, continuing the image of life taking root after it is received.

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

1 Peter 1:23 · KJVHere the word and seed are joined directly, with the word carrying life that endures.

THE THREAD

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

Luke 8:11 · KJV

Luke names as seed what Mark describes as being sown; the Greek word family links sowing with the seed itself. The image is not decoration around the word, the word reaches the ground as seed.

This reading is from Selah Verse.

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