James 3:12

12 ¹Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.

James 3:12 Meaning and Commentary

James 3:12

Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries?
&c.] Every tree bears fruit, according to its kind; a fig tree produces figs, and an olive tree olive berries; a fig tree does not produce olive berries, or an olive tree figs; and neither of them both:

either a vine, figs?
or fig trees, grapes; or either of them, figs and grapes:

so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
The Alexandrian copy reads, "neither can the salt water yield sweet water"; that is, the sea cannot yield sweet or fresh water: the Syriac version renders it, "neither can salt water be made sweet": but naturalists say, it may be made sweet, by being strained through sand: the design of these similes is to observe how absurd a thing it is that a man should both bless and curse with his tongue.

James 3:12 In-Context

10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.

11 Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?

12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.

13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.

Cross References

• 1. Matthew 7:16

Footnotes

• [a] V 11, note 1