What Does Matthew 9:38 Mean in the King James?

Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.

Matthew 9:38 · 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.

THE KEY

The verb translated “send forth” is the same one Matthew uses for a demon being “cast out”: the workers are thrust into the Lord’s harvest.

THE MEANING

The work before you belongs to the Lord, and its workers are sent by him into a field ready for gathering. This prayer recognizes that the harvest is his and that its workers do not originate their own mission.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the belief that the work depends on your own initiative or that you must produce the harvest yourself; the verse places both ownership and sending with the Lord.

THE ROOT

ἐκβάλῃ

ekbalē

GROWS FROM

⁨βαλ-⁩/⁨βαλλ-⁩ (bal-/ball-), from ⁨βάλλω⁩ (ballō)

To throw or cast; with ⁨ἐκ⁩ (ek, “out”), to throw or drive out.

The verb rendered “send forth” carries the force of casting or driving out. Matthew uses this same verb for the demon cast out earlier in the chapter, so the workers are pictured as thrust into the harvest, not simply recruited.

ALSO GROWS

ballō: To throw or cast.

βάλλω

This base verb gives “send forth” its sense of forceful movement.

ekballō: To throw out, drive out, or send out.

ἐκβάλλω

Matthew uses this same verb in 9:33 for the demon being cast out, linking that decisive removal with the workers’ dispatch.

θερισμός

therismos

GROWS FROM

θερίζω

therizō

To reap or gather a crop.

“Harvest” names both the field’s yield and the gathering action. The workers are sent into the very process of reaping, where what is ready is gathered.

ALSO GROWS

therizō: To reap.

θερίζω

The harvest is not merely a scene; it is an action that the workers enter.

theristēs: A reaper.

θεριστής

This word names the one who carries out the gathering the harvest calls for.

THE PATTERN

The work belongs to God, who sends workers into fields ready for gathering and gives the increase.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

Isaiah 6:8 · KJVThe Lord’s sending meets a willing response from the one who enters the work.

I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.

John 4:38 · KJVThe reaper enters work already prepared and sent by another.

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

1 Corinthians 3:6 · KJVHuman labor takes part in the field, while its increase comes from God.

THE THREAD

And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel.

Matthew 9:33 · KJV

Just five verses earlier, Matthew uses the same Greek verb for the demon being cast out. Here that verb describes the Lord sending workers into the harvest, giving “send forth” the force of a decisive thrust into the field.

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