James 3:12

12 Can the fygge tree my Brethren beare olive beries: other a vyne beare fygges?

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 Out of one mouth proceadeth blessynge and cursynge. My brethren these thinges ought not so to be.

11 Doth a fountayne sende forth at one place swete water and bytter also?

12 Can the fygge tree my Brethren beare olive beries: other a vyne beare fygges?

13 So can no fountayne geve bothe salt water and fresshe also. If eny man be wyse and endued with learnynge amonge you let him shewe the workes of his good conversacio in meknes that ys coupled with wisdome.

14 But Yf ye have bitter envyinge and stryfe in youre hertes reioyce not: nether be lyars agaynst the trueth.