What Does Matthew 13:27 Mean in the King James?

So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

Matthew 13:27 · 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.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The servants trace the unexpected tares back to their source: their presence in the field does not mean the householder sowed them.

THE MEANING

Good planting and harmful growth can appear in the same field, and the servants ask where the tares came from. Their question leaves open a distinction between what the householder sowed and what has appeared since.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The presence of harmful growth does not prove the good source produced it.

THE ROOT

ἔσπειρας

espeiras

GROWS FROM

σπειρ-

speir-

To sow or scatter seed.

Greek keeps “sowed” and “seed” in one word family: the seed is what has been sown. The servants’ question is therefore about who planted what is growing, not merely about what they see.

ALSO GROWS

speirō: To sow, scatter seed.

σπείρω

The verb names the planting act that the servants attribute to the householder.

sperma: Seed, what is sown.

σπέρμα

This is the seed the servants say the householder planted as good.

spora: Sowing, seed.

σπορά

This related form keeps the focus on the act and result of planting.

THE PATTERN

What appears carries a source, and unlike growth need not come from the same sower.

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 · KJVSeed and fruit correspond, so what grows points back to what was planted.

Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?

James 3:11 · KJVThe question connects what flows out to the source from which it comes.

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

Matthew 13:25 · KJVThe field holds wheat and tares because another sower has planted among the good seed.

THE THREAD

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

Matthew 13:25 · KJV

The same Greek sowing word appears here for the householder’s good seed and there for the enemy’s tares. The question “from whence” asks which sower is behind the growth.

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