What Does Matthew 21:34 Mean in the King James?
And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.
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 men called “husbandmen” are literally earth-workers: the fruit is the visible yield of entrusted labor, and its season brings the sender to claim it.
THE MEANING
What is in your care reaches a season when its yield becomes visible and ready to be received. That moment brings the relationship between tending, fruitfulness, and accountability into view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that labor alone makes whatever grows under your care wholly your own.
THE ROOT
καρπούς
karpous
GROWS FROM
καρπ-
karp-
Fruit, produce, yield, the outcome of growth.
Both mentions of “fruit” belong to the same word family: the produce of growth, made visible. The servants are sent to receive an actual yield, not merely to acknowledge the promise of one.
ALSO GROWS
karpophoreō: Bear or produce fruit.
καρποφορέω
This verb makes fruit the result of a process of growth, the very outcome the servants are sent to collect.
akarpos: Fruitless, unfruitful.
ἄκαρπος
Its opposite is defined by the absence of fruit, showing how καρπός (karpos, fruit or yield) names the visible outcome by which growth is assessed.
γεωργοῖς
geōrgois
GROWS FROM
γεωργ-
geōrg-
Earth-worker or farmer, from γῆ (gē, earth) + ἔργον (ergon, work).
“Husbandmen” translates γεωργοί (geōrgoi, farmers), literally earth-workers. The servants come to the people working the soil for its fruit, binding entrusted labor to its yield.
ALSO GROWS
geōrgia: Farming, agriculture.
γεωργία
The related word names the work of cultivation that precedes the harvest.
geōrgeō: Farm, cultivate.
γεωργέω
This verb makes the tenants’ role concrete: their work is tending the ground from which fruit comes.
λαβεῖν
labein
GROWS FROM
λαμβαν-
lamban-
Take, receive, obtain.
The word translated “receive” is a form of λαμβάνω (lambanō, take or receive), which can carry the sense of taking hold of what is handed over. The harvest moves from the vineyard toward its claimant; receiving is the action that completes the gathering.
ALSO GROWS
paralambanō: Receive, take along.
παραλαμβάνω
The shared λαμβαν- stem keeps the active sense of taking something into one’s care.
katalambanō: Take hold of, seize, overtake; grasp or comprehend.
καταλαμβάνω
This compound makes the grasping force in the word family visible, sharpening the sense of fruit being gathered into possession.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted to grow reaches a season when its fruit becomes visible and ready to be gathered.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.THE THREAD
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.The same Greek word family, καρπός (karpos, fruit or yield), connects the passages. Here the fruit is meant to remain, opening the harvest in Matthew into a wider picture of yield that continues beyond the moment it is gathered.
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