What Does Matthew 7:17 Mean?
So every good tree makes good fruit, but the rotten tree makes evil fruit.
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
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.THE KEY
The fruit is the tree’s hidden condition made visible.
THE MEANING
What is within a life becomes visible in what it produces. A good tree brings forth good fruit; a decaying tree brings forth evil fruit. The yield reveals the tree’s condition.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that repeated outcomes have no connection to what is taking root within a life.
THE ROOT
σαπρόν
sapron
GROWS FROM
σηπ-
sēp-
Rotting, decay.
The word translated “corrupt” carries the image of something rotten or decaying. The tree’s harmful yield is not an unrelated flaw: it reveals a condition already present within it.
ALSO GROWS
sēpō: To rot or decay.
σήπω
This verb makes the word’s image active: the tree is not merely labeled bad but pictured through decay.
sapria: Rottenness or putrefaction.
σαπρία
This noun names the decayed condition that the tree’s fruit makes visible.
καρπός
karpos
GROWS FROM
καρπ-
karp-
Fruit, yield, produce.
The Greek word for “fruit” also appears in words meaning “bear fruit” and “fruit-bearing.” The yield is not an accessory to the tree; it is how the life within it becomes visible.
ALSO GROWS
karpophoreō: To bear or produce fruit.
καρποφορέω
This verb keeps fruit and the act of producing it in one word family, echoing the verse’s link between a tree and its yield.
karpophoria: Fruit-bearing or fruitfulness.
καρποφορία
This noun names the condition of producing fruit, showing that the verse describes an ongoing expression of the tree’s nature.
THE PATTERN
What is rooted in a living source becomes visible in the fruit it produces.
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.I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.THE THREAD
I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.The Greek word for “fruit,” καρπός (karpos), is shared by both verses. John shows the tree-and-fruit picture as a living connection: the branch bears fruit as it abides in the vine.
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