What Does Matthew 13:32 Mean in the King James?
Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
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
Its endpoint is not size alone: what begins smallest becomes shelter for others.
THE MEANING
Something that looks negligible can already be carrying a larger form within its becoming. As it grows, its significance appears in what it can hold: other lives find a place to settle in it. Smallness is the beginning point, not the limit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A beginning too small to notice has nothing meaningful to become.
THE ROOT
κατασκηνοῖ
kataskēnoi
GROWS FROM
σκην
skēn
Tent, sheltered dwelling; the word family also describes dwelling in a place.
The word translated “lodge” carries the sense of settling under shelter. Its tent-and-dwelling family appears again when John says the Word “dwelt among us,” revealing the branches as more than parts of a growing plant: they become a place of habitation.
ALSO GROWS
skēnē: A tent or dwelling place.
σκηνή
The shared word family brings shelter into the picture: the birds find a dwelling in the tree’s branches.
skēnoō: To dwell or take up residence.
σκηνόω
John 1:14 uses a form of this verb for the Word dwelling among us, echoing the verse’s image of life settling into shelter.
αὐξηθῇ
auxēthē
GROWS FROM
αὐξ
aux
Grow, increase.
“grown” in this verse is auxēthē. The seed’s change is expressed as increase: it grows beyond its first scale until it can hold other lives. The same word family describes growth elsewhere as something that happens within a connected body, not as size for its own sake.
ALSO GROWS
auxanō: To grow or increase.
αὐξάνω
This is the verb family behind the seed’s becoming; in 1 Corinthians 3:6, it describes the increase that follows planting and watering.
auxēsis: Growth or increase.
αὔξησις
Colossians 2:19 uses this related noun for the growth of a body, reinforcing that increase can belong to a larger living whole.
THE PATTERN
Life that begins as a small planting can grow into provision and shelter for others.
In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell.The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it.I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.THE THREAD
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.The verb translated “lodge” belongs to the Greek word family of tenting and dwelling; John uses that same family for the Word dwelling among us. The tree’s branches become a place of habitation, linking its growth with the arrival of a dwelling among people.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us