What Does Matthew 21:19 Mean in the King James?
And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.
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 tree’s leaves cannot substitute for the fruit that reveals what its life is producing.
THE MEANING
This verse shows you a life with visible signs of growth but no fruit. When the spoken judgment lands, the leafy appearance cannot preserve it; the tree withers at once.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that looking alive is the same as bearing life-giving fruit.
THE ROOT
καρπός
karpos
GROWS FROM
καρπ-
karp-
Fruit, produce, or yield.
The Greek word can name both fruit on a tree and the yield of a life. Its word family forms both fruit-bearing and fruitless, setting actual yield against the tree’s visible leaves.
ALSO GROWS
karpophoreō: To bear or bring forth fruit.
καρποφορέω
This branch names the tree’s productive condition, the very thing missing here.
akarpos: Fruitless; without fruit.
ἄκαρπος
This branch names the absence that leaves alone cannot conceal.
ἐξηράνθη
exēranthē
GROWS FROM
ξηρ-
xēr-
Dry; drained of moisture.
“withered” in this verse is exēranthē. The verb belongs to the Greek word family for drying out. The tree does not merely disappear: it becomes dry, and its leafy appearance gives way to visible withering.
ALSO GROWS
xēros: Dry.
ξηρός
This adjective names the condition the tree reaches.
xērainō: To dry up or wither.
ξηραίνω
This verb shares the dry-word family and describes the tree’s collapse.
THE PATTERN
Visible foliage cannot replace the fruit that shows whether a tree is yielding life.
For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?THE THREAD
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.Matthew 7:19 uses the same Greek word, καρπός (karpos, fruit), for a tree’s yield. It states the pattern that the fig tree enacts here: a tree without fruit is cut down, while this one withers under the spoken sentence.
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