What Does Matthew 15:13 Mean?
But he answered and said, Every planting that my heavenly Father did not plant will be rooted out.
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
But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.THE KEY
What the Father did not plant cannot hold its place: its removal reaches the root.
THE MEANING
Whatever is not planted by the Father does not become his planting just because it grows beside what is. The verse holds out a decisive future: such growth is uprooted, down to its root. Its focus is source and belonging, not how established something looks.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that whatever has become familiar or established must come from the Father; its presence alone does not prove its source.
THE ROOT
ἐκριζωθήσεται
ekrizōthēsetai
GROWS FROM
ῥιζ-
rhiz-
root; the base from which growth rises. With ἐκ (ek, out), the verb means to root out, uproot.
“rooted out” in this verse is ekrizōthēsetai. The word pictures removal at the root, not a surface trimming. What is uprooted loses its hold at the very place from which its growth came.
ALSO GROWS
rhiza: root
ῥίζα
The noun names the part the verse’s uprooting reaches; the issue is what holds the growth in place.
rhizoō: cause to take root, establish
ῥιζόω
This related verb shows the root as the point of establishment, the very point undone by being rooted out.
φυτεία
phyteia
GROWS FROM
φυτ-
phyt-
plant, growth; the plant or planting that comes from something being grown.
The noun “plant” and the Father’s act of planting belong to the same Greek word-family: the verse ties what grows to the one who planted it. The contrast is about origin, not appearance.
ALSO GROWS
phuteuō: plant, cultivate
φυτεύω
This is the verb used for what the Father has done, or has not done.
phyton: plant, growing thing
φυτόν
This related noun points to what emerges from planting, linking the source of growth with the thing that grows.
THE PATTERN
What is planted and sustained by God bears fruit, while growth detached from its source cannot endure.
And he becomes like a tree planted by the channels of the waters, that gives its fruit in its season; its leaf does not wither; whatever he does, he breaks through.Those planted in the house of the LORD bloom in the courts of our God.Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he lifts away. And every branch that bears, he cleanses it, that it may bear more fruit.THE THREAD
But when the sun rose, it was scorched, and because it held no root, it dried up.Matthew’s “rooted up” and Mark’s “root” share the Greek root-family ῥιζ- (rhiz-). In Mark, growth without a root withers; here, what the Father did not plant is pulled out by its root, the source determines whether growth endures.
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