What Does Mark 4:7 Mean in the King James?

And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

Mark 4:7 · 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 seed is present, yet rival growth can close around it until the life within gives no fruit.

THE MEANING

This verse speaks to you when a living beginning cannot come to fruit because other growth closes around it. The choking does not prove the seed was never there; it shows that what surrounds it can take over the space it needs to bear.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie is that no fruit proves nothing alive was ever planted. Here the seed is present, but what grows around it prevents its fruit.

THE ROOT

συνέπνιξαν

synepnixan

GROWS FROM

⁨πνιγ-⁩ (pnig-), compounded with ⁨συν-⁩ (syn-, together)

The base means to choke or suffocate; the compound pictures pressure closing around something.

“choked” in this verse is synepnixan. The verb pictures more than absence: something living is pressed in by what surrounds it. The pressure comes from growth alongside the seed, not from the seed simply vanishing.

ALSO GROWS

pnigō: to choke or suffocate

πνίγω

This base verb makes the force in the verse bodily and immediate: the seed is deprived of room to live outwardly.

sympnigō: to press together and choke

συμπνίγω

Mark 4:19 uses the same compound for what chokes the word, showing the surrounding pressure as the parable’s recurring mechanism.

καρπὸν

karpon

GROWS FROM

καρπ-

karp-

Fruit, produce; the outward result of growth.

Fruit is what growth gives outwardly. Its absence here is tied directly to the choking: the seed is present, but its life does not reach expression.

ALSO GROWS

karpophoreō: to bear fruit

καρποφορέω

Mark 4:20 uses this word for the good soil, revealing the contrast between growth that can express itself and growth closed off by thorns.

karpophoria: fruit-bearing, producing fruit

καρποφορία

This related word names fruitfulness as an ongoing expression of growth, the very outcome the choking prevents.

THE PATTERN

A living seed can become fruitless when surrounding growth takes over the space it needs.

For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

Jeremiah 4:3 · KJVThe warning against sowing among thorns shows that what already occupies the ground can shape what a seed is able to become.

And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

Mark 4:19 · KJVThe verse names the pressures that grow around the word and close off its fruit.

But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.

Hebrews 6:8 · KJVThorn-bearing ground ends in rejection and burning, showing the severe outcome of growth that produces no useful crop.

THE THREAD

And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

Mark 4:19 · KJV

The same Greek verb for choking returns as the next verse names the thorns: cares, riches, and other desires. The word remains present while surrounding growth presses in and closes off its fruit.

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