What Does Romans 11:16 Mean in the King James?
For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
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
Set-apartness is not confined to the first portion or hidden root; it reaches the whole and the branches that grow from it.
THE MEANING
What is set apart at the beginning reaches beyond the beginning: the whole lump shares the first portion’s consecration, and the branches share the root’s condition. The verse speaks to you as part of a whole whose belonging is bound to its source.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is set apart belongs only to the first portion, while everything else remains ordinary and disconnected.
THE ROOT
ἅγιος
hagios
GROWS FROM
ἁγ-
hag-
Set apart, consecrated; belonging to God.
“holy” in this verse is hagios. This word names more than moral purity: it describes what is marked off as belonging to God. Here that set-apartness extends from the first portion and the root to the whole and its branches.
ALSO GROWS
hagiazō: Set apart, consecrate.
ἁγιάζω
The related verb shows that set-apartness can be an act as well as a condition.
hagiosynē: Holiness, set-apartness.
ἁγιωσύνη
This related noun carries the same quality named in the verse into a continuing state of belonging.
ῥίζα
rhiza
GROWS FROM
ῥιζ-
rhiz-
Root; the source anchoring a plant and its growth.
The root is hidden while its branches are visible, yet the verse makes the branches’ condition depend on it. The image gives the source a continuing presence in the life growing from it.
ALSO GROWS
rhizoō: To cause to take root, establish.
ῥιζόω
The verb makes explicit the anchoring that lets growth continue.
errizōmenoi: Rooted, established.
ἐρριζωμένοι
This related form describes a settled state whose strength comes from being rooted.
THE PATTERN
A living source carries its identity into the whole that grows from it.
Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough for an heave offering: as ye do the heave offering of the threshingfloor, so shall ye heave it.And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.THE THREAD
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.Paul calls the risen Christ the ἀπαρχή (aparchē, firstfruits), the same Greek word rendered firstfruit here. Both verses bind the first portion to a whole: Romans links firstfruit with the lump, while this verse names Christ as firstfruits of those who have died.
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