What Does Matthew 13:39 Mean?
The enemy who sowed them is the Slanderer; the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are messengers.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.THE KEY
The “end of the world” is the completion of an age, when what was sown reaches its harvest through the work of messengers.
THE MEANING
What the enemy sows does not remain hidden forever; it reaches a time of completion and gathering. The enemy is named as the Slanderer, and the reapers as messengers, each identified by the work they carry in the harvest.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What is sown can stay concealed forever. The harvest brings it to its appointed gathering.
THE ROOT
συντέλεια
synteleia
GROWS FROM
τελε-
tele-
Bring to completion, finish, reach an outcome.
“end of the age” in this verse is synteleia. The word for “end” names a bringing to completion. Paired with αἰών (aiōn, “age”), it presents the harvest as the completion of a span and the gathering of what it has produced.
ALSO GROWS
telos: An end point or result.
τέλος
It shows how completion can name both a boundary and the outcome reached there.
teleioō: To complete or bring something to its intended finish.
τελειόω
This verb makes the verse’s “end” an arriving at completion, not merely a word for time running out.
αἰῶνος
aiōnos
GROWS FROM
αἰών
aiōn
An age, era, or span of time.
“end of the age” in this verse is aiōnos. The Greek word names an age or era, the span being completed. Together, συντέλεια (synteleia, “completion”) and αἰών (aiōn, “age”) place the harvest at the close of a defined span.
ALSO GROWS
aiōn: An age or era.
αἰών
This is the noun whose genitive form appears in the verse’s phrase for the age being completed.
aiōnios: Pertaining to an age or its duration.
αἰώνιος
The related adjective carries the same age-language into descriptions of duration.
διάβολος
diabolos
GROWS FROM
διαβαλλ-
diaball-
Slander, accuse, or bring a charge against.
The word names the enemy as the Slanderer, one whose identity is bound to accusation. Here that name stands beside the act of sowing tares, keeping the enemy’s destructive work in view.
ALSO GROWS
diaballō: To slander or make an accusation.
διαβάλλω
The verb shows the action carried by the name “Slanderer.”
diabolē: Slander or accusation.
διαβολή
The related noun names the accusing work associated with the enemy in this verse.
THE PATTERN
What is sown matures toward an appointed gathering where its outcome becomes visible.
And God said, "Let the earth sprout green growth, the seed-bearing plant, and the fruit tree making fruit after its kind, whose seed is in it, upon the earth." And it was so.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.And another messenger comes out from the temple, shouting with a loud voice to the one who sits upon the cloud, Send your sickle and reap, for the hour has come for you to reap, for the harvest of the earth has dried.THE THREAD
Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will say to the reapers, Gather together first the weeds, and bind them into bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my granary.“Harvest” (θερισμός, therismos, “harvest”) and “reapers” (θερισταί, theristai, “reapers”) belong to the same θερίζω (therizō, “reap”) word family in both verses. Matthew 13:30 shows the gathering; this verse names the age’s completion and the messengers who carry it out.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us