What Does Matthew 21:20 Mean in the King James?
And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is 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
A word can make its consequence visible before expectation has time to catch up.
THE MEANING
You see a consequence arrive so quickly that your mind is still measuring the speed while your eyes already see the result. The verse holds together visible fact and astonishment: the change is complete before it feels plausible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that a complete change must take time to become visible; sometimes the result is present before expectation can catch up.
THE ROOT
ἐξηράνθη
exēranthē
GROWS FROM
ξηρ
xēr
dry; dryness
“withered away” in this verse is exēranthē. The verb names the tree’s change as drying. The same word family describes a hand as dry and seed as withering, bringing the English phrase’s sense of disappearance into a concrete image of lost moisture and visible vitality.
ALSO GROWS
xēros: dry
ξηρός
This adjective describes the withered hand in Matthew 12:10, using the same dry-state language for a body part that this verse uses for a tree.
xērainō: to dry up, wither
ξηραίνω
This is the verb’s lexical form; it also describes seed withering in Matthew 13:6, linking the sudden visible change to the same root word.
THE PATTERN
Visible flourishing can vanish under conditions its appearance alone cannot resist.
Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb.For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:THE THREAD
And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.Matthew 13:6 uses the same verb, ἐξηράνθη, for seed that withers because it has no root. Beside that parable, the shared word opens a link between visible drying and the unseen source that sustains growth.
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