What Does Matthew 9:37 Mean?
Then he said to his learners, The harvest is great, but the workers are few.
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
Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;THE KEY
The verse locates scarcity in the hands available to gather, not in the abundance waiting to be gathered.
THE MEANING
What is ready is abundant, even when few people are prepared to gather it. The verse places the gap between the harvest and the hands available to work in it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that few people working means there is little worth gathering; the shortage is in the workers, not the harvest.
THE ROOT
θερισμός
therismos
GROWS FROM
θερίζω
therizō
to reap, to harvest
The Greek word for harvest grows from the act of reaping. Its abundance is already ready for gathering: the word carries movement from standing crop toward gathered yield.
ALSO GROWS
therizō: to reap, harvest
θερίζω
The harvest is named through the act that gathers it.
theristēs: reaper
θεριστής
The reaper is another word from this root, linking the field’s abundance to the person who gathers it.
ἐργάται
ergatai
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
erg-
work, deed
“workers” in this verse is ergatai. The Greek word for labourers belongs to the same word family as work and deed. It points to people engaged in carrying work through, making the contrast one of abundant readiness and limited participation.
ALSO GROWS
ergon: work, deed
ἔργον
The labourer’s root links the person to the work being done.
ergazomai: to work, labor, produce
ἐργάζομαι
This related verb names the activity of the labourers in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A harvest can exceed the available workers because its abundance is present before any one person gathers it.
Look, the days come, says the LORD, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the one who treads grapes shall overtake the one who draws seed. The mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Look, I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the fields, for they are already white for the harvest.I planted, Apollos gave to drink, but God made it grow.THE THREAD
Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Look, I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the fields, for they are already white for the harvest.John uses the same Greek word for harvest, θερισμός (therismos), and says the fields are already ready to gather. Together, the verses show abundance present before the work of gathering begins.
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