That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind.
Parallel Translations
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That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind.
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And what sowest thow? Thow sowest not that body that shalbe: but bare corne (I meane ether of wheet or of some other)
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And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shalbe, but bare corne as it falleth, of wheat, or of some other.
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Explain this verse (15 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not…
37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
Ver. 37. And that which thou sowest] This is an answer to the epicure’s second demand, 1Co 15:35, with what body do they come? with a dead, diseased, rotten body, &c.? No, no, saith the apostle. Sin is only rotted with its concomitancies, infirmities; but the rotting of the body is but as the rotting of a kernal under the clod, that it may arise incorruptible. Or as the melting of an old piece of plate in the fire, to bring it out of a better fashion. Christ was buried in a garden, to note that death doth not destroy our bodies, but only sow them: the dew of herbs will revive them again. {See Trapp on "1Co 15:18"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain And when it again riseth, or shooteth up, it…
And when it again riseth, or shooteth up, it is not bare grain, without either stalk or ear, which was the body by them sown.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain There are also celestial bodies,.... Or bodies in the…
There are also celestial bodies,.... Or bodies in the heavens, as the sun, moon, and stars:
and bodies terrestrial; or bodies on earth, animate and inanimate, men, beasts, trees, minerals, &c.
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But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another: though both sorts are bodies, yet their qualities differ, and there is a greater glory in the one than in the other. This is another similitude, serving to help our ideas of this doctrine of the resurrection of the body; that though it is the same in substance, yet different in qualities; and does not design any difference between the bodies of good men and bad men, elect and reprobate; as if the one were intended by the celestial bodies, and the other by the terrestrial; and much less degrees of glory in the saints themselves, who, imagine them in as low a form as can be, can never be compared to terrestrial ones; but it shows the difference there will be between the raised bodies and the present ones; which will be as great as that which now is between celestial and terrestrial bodies.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Thou sowest not the body that shall be -…
Thou sowest not the body that shall be - Produced from the seed committed to the ground, but a bare, naked grain, widely different from that which will afterward rise out of the earth.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 37. Thou sowest not that body that shall…
Verse 37. Thou sowest not that body that shall be] This is decomposed, and becomes the means of nourishing the whole plant, roots, stalk, leaves, ear, and full corn in the ear.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And that which thou sowest - The seed which…
And that which thou sowest - The seed which is sown.
Not that body that shall be - You sow one kernel which is to produce many others. They shall not be the same that is sown. They will be new kernels raised from that; of the same kind, indeed, and showing their intimate and necessary connection with that which is sown. It is implied here that the body which will be raised will not be the same in the sense that the same particles of matter shall compose it, but the same only in the sense that it will have sprung up from that; will constitute the same order, rank, species of being, and be subject to the same laws, and deserve the same course of treatment as that which died; as the grain produced is subject to the same laws, and belongs to the same rank, order, and species as that which is sown. And as the same particles of matter which are sown do not enter into that which shall be in the harvest, so it is taught that the same particles of matter which constitute the body when it dies, do not constitute the new body at the resurrection.
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But bare grain - Mere grain; a mere kernel, without any husk, leaf, blade, or covering of any kind. Those are added in the process of reproduction. The design of this is to make it appear more remarkable, and to destroy the force of the objection. It was not only not the grain that should be produced, but it was without the appendages and ornaments of blade, and flower, and beard of the new grain. How could anyone tell but what it would be so in the resurrection? How could any know but what there might be appendages and ornaments there, which were not connected with the body that died?
It may chance of wheat ... - For example; or suppose it be wheat or any other grain. The apostle adduces this merely for an example; not to intimate that there is any chance about it.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain not that body that shall be--a body beautiful and…
not that body that shall be--a body beautiful and no longer a "bare grain" [BENGEL]. No longer without stalk or ear, but clothed with blade and ears, and yielding many grains instead of only one [GROTIUS]. There is not an identity of all the particles of the old and the new body. For the perpetual transmutation of matter is inconsistent with this. But there is a hidden germ which constitutes the identity of body amidst all outward changes: the outward accretions fall off in its development, while the germ remains the same. Every such germ ("seed," Co1 15:38) "shall have its own body," and be instantly recognized, just as each plant now is known from the seed that was sown (see on Co1 6:13). So Christ by the same image illustrated the truth that His death was the necessary prelude of His putting on His glorified body, which is the ground of the regeneration of the many who believe (Joh 12:24). Progress is the law of the spiritual, as of the natural world. Death is the avenue not to mere revivification or reanimation, but to resurrection and regeneration (Mat 19:28; Phi 3:21). Compare "planted," &c., Rom 6:5.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 37. Not… body that shall be—The planter does not…
37. Not… body that shall be—The planter does not sow it a plant and then have it come up a plant. But a seed is sown and a plant is grown. Just so you bury a putrid corpse, and it comes forth an angel-like body. But to the apostle’s legitimate conception the new plant is but a transfiguration of the old seed, and the new body is but a molecular rearrangement of the old corpse. The old corpse is the primitive material out of which the new body is made; just as in the change of 1Co_15:52, the old is the material for the new.
Bare grain—Naked kernel, not a living stalk, with fresh branches, foliage, and flower; as it is in its upspringing.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 37. and that which thou sowest] “There are two…
37. and that which thou sowest] “There are two parts in this similitude: first that it is not wonderful that bodies should arise again from corruption, since the same thing happens in the case of the seed; and next that it is not contrary to nature that our bodies should be endowed with new qualities, when from naked grain God produces so many ears clothed with a wonderful workmanship.” Calvin. Tyndale renders, And what sowest thou?
thou sowest not that body that shall be] “The same, yet not the same. The same, because the essence is the same; but not the same, because the latter is the more excellent.” Chrysostom. The identity of the body does not depend upon its material particles, because physicists tell us that these are in a continual flux, and that in the course of seven years every material particle in the body has been changed. Personal identity depends upon the principle of continuity. The risen body arises out of that which has seen corruption, in the same way as the plant out of its germ. The length of time that elapses is nothing to Him to Whom ‘a thousand years are but as one day.’ But as the seed is to all appearance very different to the plant which arises from it, although science tells us that it contains that whole plant in miniature, as the Body of Jesus after His Resurrection was endowed with many strange and new qualities (St Joh_20:19; Joh_20:26) so as often to be unrecognizable by His disciples (St Luk_24:16; Luk_24:31; Luk_24:37; St Joh_20:14; Joh_21:4) though yet it was the same body (St Luk_24:39-40; St Joh_20:20; Joh_20:27); so we learn that the body we sow in the grave is ‘not that body that shall be,’ but that the resurrection body—the spiritual body—while it exhibits visible and unequivocal signs of its connection with the body out of which it has arisen, will be possessed of many wondrous faculties which are denied to us here. See notes on next verse and on 1Co_15:42-44, and cf. Rom_8:11 (margin), Rev_21:4.
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but bare grain] i.e. naked grain. A nakid corn, Wiclif. Our version follows Tyndale here, only substituting grain for corne.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (37, 38) God giveth it a body.—Here it is…
(37, 38) God giveth it a body.—Here it is implied that, though the seed grows up, as we say, “in the ordinary course of Nature,” it is God who not only has originally established but continually sustains that order. Each seed rises with its own “body;” a corn seed grows up into corn, an acorn into an oak. All through this passage the word “body” is used in a general sense for “organism,” so as to keep strictly and vividly before the reader the ultimate truth to illustrate which these analogies are introduced. The points of analogy between the sowing and growth of seed and the life and resurrection of man are not, as some writers put it—(1) the seed is sown, and man is buried; (2) the seed rots, and man’s body decays; (3) the seed grows up, and man is raised. Such a series of analogies are misleading, for there is no necessity for the body of man to decay, but only a necessity for it to die (1Co_15:51-52). The points of analogy are these:—(1) The seed is sown in the earth, and man is born into the world; (2) the seed dies and decays—man dies; (3) the seed grows through its very decay—man rises through death.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Not that body that shall be. This deep remark…
Not that body that shall be. This deep remark should have checked the idly and offensively materialistic form in which the doctrine of the resurrection is often taught. But bare grain. Wickliffe, "a naked corne." In this passage, almost alone in all his Epistles, St. Paul, who does not seem to have been at all a close observer of external phenomena, uses metaphors drawn from natural life. His usual metaphors are chiefly architectural and agonistic derived, that is, from buildings and games. That he was not a student of nature arose, no doubt, partly from his Semitic cast of mind, but chiefly from his being short sighted, and from his having spent most of his early life in large cities. It may chance; if it so happen,. (see note on 1Co_14:10) The English word "chance" occurs but four times in the whole Bible (1Sa_6:9; Ecc_9:11) In Luk_10:31 the words rendered "by chance" mean rather "by coincidence."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 37. And that which thou sowest, etc. We sow,…
37. And that which thou sowest, etc. We sow, not the plant that comes forth, but only a bare seed.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the…
and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare [naked] grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind ;
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 What you sow is not the body that will…
What you sow is not the body that will be
Paul uses the metaphor of the seed again to say that God will resurrect the dead body of the believer, but that body will not appear as it was. (See: Metaphor)
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What you sow
Paul is speaking to the Corinthians as if they were one person, so the word "you" here is singular. (See: Forms of You)
God will give it a body as he chooses
"God will decide what kind of body it will have"
flesh
In the context of animals, "flesh" may be translated as "body," "skin," or "meat."
translationWords
plant
body
seed
flesh
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 15:37-39 Just as the shape of a plant does…
15:37-39 Just as the shape of a plant does not resemble the seed, yet the plant’s growth is determined by the kind of seed, so the resurrection body will be unlike the present body, yet identifiable as belonging to the same person.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.