What Does Matthew 9:38 Mean?
Beg therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would throw out workers into his harvest.
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
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.THE KEY
The verb translated “send forth” is the same one Matthew uses for a demon being “cast out”: the workers are thrust into the Lord’s harvest.
THE MEANING
The work before you belongs to the Lord, and its workers are sent by him into a field ready for gathering. This prayer recognizes that the harvest is his and that its workers do not originate their own mission.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that the work depends on your own initiative or that you must produce the harvest yourself; the verse places both ownership and sending with the Lord.
THE ROOT
ἐκβάλῃ
ekbalē
GROWS FROM
βαλ-/βαλλ- (bal-/ball-), from βάλλω (ballō)
To throw or cast; with ἐκ (ek, “out”), to throw or drive out.
“throw out” in this verse is ekbalē. The verb rendered “send forth” carries the force of casting or driving out. Matthew uses this same verb for the demon cast out earlier in the chapter, so the workers are pictured as thrust into the harvest, not simply recruited.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: To throw or cast.
βάλλω
This base verb gives “send forth” its sense of forceful movement.
ekballō: To throw out, drive out, or send out.
ἐκβάλλω
Matthew uses this same verb in 9:33 for the demon being cast out, linking that decisive removal with the workers’ dispatch.
θερισμός
therismos
GROWS FROM
θερίζω
therizō
To reap or gather a crop.
“Harvest” names both the field’s yield and the gathering action. The workers are sent into the very process of reaping, where what is ready is gathered.
ALSO GROWS
therizō: To reap.
θερίζω
The harvest is not merely a scene; it is an action that the workers enter.
theristēs: A reaper.
θεριστής
This word names the one who carries out the gathering the harvest calls for.
THE PATTERN
The work belongs to God, who sends workers into fields ready for gathering and gives the increase.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am; send me.I sent you to reap what you did not toil for. Others toiled, and you have entered into their toil.I planted, Apollos gave to drink, but God made it grow.THE THREAD
And when the demon was thrown out, the mute man spoke. And the crowds marveled, saying, Never has it been seen like this in Israel.Just five verses earlier, Matthew uses the same Greek verb for the demon being cast out. Here that verb describes the Lord sending workers into the harvest, giving “send forth” the force of a decisive thrust into the field.
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