What Does Matthew 13:48 Mean?
Which, when it was full, they drew up onto the shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the rotten away.
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
Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.THE KEY
The net does not sort while it is still filling; fullness brings the catch to shore, where its condition is discerned.
THE MEANING
A gathering can hold unlike things together until it is full and brought to shore. There, what is good and fitting is gathered into vessels, while what is rotten is cast outside.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being gathered together does not mean everything in the gathering has the same condition; the distinction comes when the net is full.
THE ROOT
σαπρά
sapra
GROWS FROM
σαπρ- / σηπ- (sapros / sēpō)
Rotten, decayed, or unsound.
“rotten” in this verse is sapra. The word translated “bad” carries the sense of rot or unsoundness, giving the rejected catch a particular condition rather than a vague label. The image sorts by what the catch has become.
ALSO GROWS
sēpō: To cause to rot or decay.
σήπω
This decay-related verb brings out the deterioration carried by “bad.”
sēpsis: Decay or putrefaction.
σῆψις
This noun names the process behind the unsound condition of the rejected catch.
ἐπληρώθη
eplērōthē
GROWS FROM
πληρόω (plēroō), stem πληρ-
To fill fully, bring to fullness, or complete.
“full” in this verse is eplērōthē. The net reaches fullness before the sorting begins. The sequence makes fullness the threshold at which the catch is brought ashore and its contents are distinguished.
ALSO GROWS
plērēs: Full, complete.
πλήρης
It describes the state the net reaches before the catch is sorted.
plērōma: Fullness, that which fills or completes.
πλήρωμα
It echoes the passage’s movement toward a filled measure.
τὰ καλά
ta kala
GROWS FROM
καλός (kalos), stem καλ-
Good, beautiful, or fitting.
“Good” also carries the sense of what is beautiful or fitting. Set beside what is rotten, the word gives the sorting a distinction in condition: what is fitting is gathered, and what has decayed is cast out.
ALSO GROWS
kalōs: Well, beautifully, fittingly.
καλῶς
This adverb carries the same sense of goodness expressed as fitting action or manner.
kalliōn: More beautiful, finer, better.
καλλίων
This comparative form preserves the family’s association between goodness and what is fine or fitting.
THE PATTERN
A shared gathering can hold unlike things until a decisive separation reveals their different conditions.
The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the breath blows away.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.And all the nations are gathered before him, and he divides them one from another, as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats.THE THREAD
Another parable he laid beside them, saying, The governance of the heavens is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.The same Greek word family, καλός (kalos), describes the good seed here and the good catch in verse 48. The shared word links goodness at the sowing with what is recognized and gathered at the shore.
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