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Amplified Bible

1 Corinthians 15:36

You fool! Every time you plant seed you sow something that does not come to life [germinating, springing up and growing] unless it first dies.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Body;   Botany;   Immortality;   Resurrection;   Seed;   Scofield Reference Index - Resurrection;   Thompson Chain Reference - Dead, the;   Life;   Mortality-Immortality;   Resurrection;   The Topic Concordance - Body;   Death;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Resurrection, the;   Seed;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Death;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Body;   Heaven;   Humanity, humankind;   Resurrection;   Spirit;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Immortality;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Annihilation;   Omnipotence of God;   Resurrection;   Resurrection of Christ;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Adam;   Sin;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Adam (1);   Resurrection;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Body;   Celestial Bodies;   Death;   Resurrection;   Resurrection of Jesus Christ;   1 Corinthians;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Adam in the Nt;   Corinthians, First Epistle to the;   Eschatology;   Ethics;   Resurrection;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Adam;   Fool;   Gospel (2);   Raca;   Resurrection of the Dead;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Sower, Sowing;   The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary - Raca;  

Encyclopedias:

- Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia - Tabernacle, the;   International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Christ, the Exaltation of;   Fool;   Quick;  

Parallel Translations

Easy-to-Read Version
These are stupid questions. When you plant something, it must die in the ground before it can live and grow.
Revised Standard Version
You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
Tyndale New Testament (1525)
Thou fole that which thou sowest is not quickened except it dye.
Hebrew Names Version
You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies.
International Standard Version
You fool! The seed you plant does not come to life unless it dies,John 12:24;">[xr]
New American Standard Bible
You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies;
New Century Version
Foolish person! When you sow a seed, it must die in the ground before it can live and grow.
Update Bible Version
You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not quickened except it dies:
Webster's Bible Translation
[Thou] fool, that which thou sowest is not vivified except it die:
English Standard Version
You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
World English Bible
You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies.
Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die,
Weymouth's New Testament
Foolish man! the seed you yourself sow has no life given to it unless it first dies;
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Vnwise man, that thing that thou sowist, is not quykened, but it die first;
English Revised Version
Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened, except it die:
Berean Standard Bible
You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
Contemporary English Version
Don't be foolish. A seed must die before it can sprout from the ground.
American Standard Version
Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened except it die:
Bible in Basic English
Foolish man, it is necessary for the seed which you put into the earth to undergo death in order that it may come to life again:
Complete Jewish Bible
Stupid! When you sow a seed, it doesn't come alive unless it first dies.
Darby Translation
Fool; what *thou* sowest is not quickened unless it die.
Etheridge Translation
Fool, the seed which thou sowest, unless it die, lives not:
Murdock Translation
Foolish man ! The seed which thou sowest, is not quickened, unless it die.
King James Version (1611)
Thou foole, that which thou sowest, is not quickened except it die.
New Living Translation
What a foolish question! When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn't grow into a plant unless it dies first.
New Life Bible
What a foolish question! When you plant a seed, it must die before it starts new life.
New Revised Standard
Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
Geneva Bible (1587)
O foole, that which thou sowest, is not quickened, except it die.
George Lamsa Translation
Thou fool, the seed which you sow, is not quickened, except it die.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Simple one! What, thou, sowest, is not quickened, except it die;
Douay-Rheims Bible
Senseless man, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die first.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Thou foole, that which thou sowest, is not quickened except it dye.
Good News Translation
You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it does not sprout to life unless it dies.
Christian Standard Bible®
You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
King James Version
Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
Lexham English Bible
Foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
Literal Translation
Foolish one! What you sow is not made alive unless it dies.
Young's Literal Translation
unwise! thou -- what thou dost sow is not quickened except it may die;
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Thou foole, yt which thou sowest is not quyckened, excepte it dye.
Mace New Testament (1729)
foolish as you are, the grain you sow, is not revived except it die.
New English Translation
Fool! What you sow will not come to life unless it dies.
New King James Version
Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.
Simplified Cowboy Version
There's no such thing as a stupid question, but these come close. A plant cannot grow unless it is buried in the ground.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies;
Legacy Standard Bible
You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies;

Contextual Overview

35But someone will say, "How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body will they come?" 36You fool! Every time you plant seed you sow something that does not come to life [germinating, springing up and growing] unless it first dies.37The seed you sow is not the body (the plant) which it is going to become, but it is a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or some other grain. 38But God gives it a body just as He planned, and to each kind of seed a body of its own [is given]. 39All flesh is not the same. There is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40There are also heavenly bodies [sun, moon and stars] and earthly bodies [humans, animals, and plants], but the glory and beauty of the heavenly is one kind, and the glory of the earthly is another. 41There is a glory and beauty of the sun, another glory of the moon, and yet another [distinctive] glory of the stars; and one star differs from another in glory and brilliance. 42So it is with the resurrection of the dead. The [human] body that is sown is perishable and mortal, it is raised imperishable and immortal. 43It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in strength; 44it is sown a natural body [mortal, suited to earth], it is raised a spiritual body [immortal, suited to heaven]. As surely as there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

fool: Luke 12:20, Luke 24:25, Romans 1:22, Ephesians 5:15

that: John 12:24

Reciprocal: 2 Chronicles 16:9 - Herein Job 14:8 - die in the ground Hosea 14:7 - revive Luke 11:40 - fools 2 Corinthians 11:29 - and I burn Colossians 2:8 - philosophy Colossians 2:13 - he James 2:20 - O vain

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Thou fool,.... Not transgressing the law of Christ, which makes him that calls his brother a fool in danger of hell fire; for the apostle said not this in anger, and from a malevolent disposition, as that rule supposes, but out of zeal for truth, and to reprove the stupidity and folly of such a bold objector; in opposing the veracity and power of God, in setting up his reason above divine revelation, and in not attending even to natural philosophy itself; in which professing to be wise he might be justly called a fool, and therefore sends him to the husbandman to learn of him how to answer his own queries:

that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and which is more especially true of a grain of wheat: our Lord observes the same, :-, and designs by the simile his own death, and resurrection, and the fruit following thereon. This seed being cast into the earth corrupts, rots, and dies, and then is quickened, and rises up in stalk, blade, and ear. Which shows that the dissolution and corruption of the body by death is so far from being an objection to its resurrection, that it is necessary to it, even as the dying and putrifying of the seed, or grain of wheat, is necessary to its quickening and rising up again; and that if God is able to quicken a seed or grain that is rotten and entirely dead, and cause it to rise up in verdure and with much fruit, as he does every year in millions of instances, why should it be thought incredible that God should quicken dead bodies, when the one is as much an instance of his power as the other? The Claromontane exemplar reads, "except it die first"; and so the Vulgate Latin version.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou fool - Foolish, inconsiderate man! The meaning is, that it was foolish to make this objection, when the same difficulty existed in an undeniable fact which fell under daily observation. A man was a fool to urge that as an objection to religion which must exist in the undeniable and everyday facts which they witnessed. The idea is, “The same difficulty may be started about the growth of grain. Suppose a man who had never seen it, were to be told that it was to be put into the earth; that it was to die; to be decomposed; and that from the decayed kernel there should be seen to start up first a slender, green, and tender spire of grass, and that this was to send up a strong stalk, and was to produce hundreds of similar kernels at some distant period. These facts would be as improbable to him as the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. When he saw the kernel laid in the ground; when he saw it decay; when apparently it was returning to dust, he would ask, How can these be connected with the production of similar grain? Are not all the indications that it will be totally corrupted and destroyed?”

Yet, says Paul, this is connected with the hope of the harvest, and this fact should remove all the objection which is derived from the fact that the body returns to its native dust. The idea is, that there is an analogy, and that the main objection in the one case would lie equally well against the acknowledged and indisputable fact in the other. It is evident, however, that this argument is of a popular character, and is not to be pressed to the quick; nor are we to suppose that the resemblance will be in all respects the same. It is to be used as Paul used it. The objection was, that the body died, and returned to dust, and could not, therefore, rise again. The reply of Paul is, “You may make the same objection to grain that is sown. That dies also. The main body of the kernel decays. In itself there is no prospect that it will spring up. Should it stop here, and had you never seen a grain of wheat grow; had you only seen it in the earth, as you have seen the body in the grave, there would be the same difficulty as to how it would produce other grains, which there is about the resurrection of the body.”

Is not quickened - Does not become alive; does not grow.

Except it die - See the note on John 12:24. The main body of the grain decays that it may become food and nourishment to the tender germ. Perhaps it is implied here also that there was a fitness that people should die in order to obtain the glorious body of the resurrection, in the same way as it is fit that the kernel should die, in order that there may be a new and beautiful harvest.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 36. Thou fool — αφρον. If this be addressed, as it probably is, to the false apostle, there is a peculiar propriety in it; as this man seems to have magnified his own wisdom, and set it up against both God and man; and none but a fool could act so. At the same time, it is folly in any to assert the impossibility of a thing because he cannot comprehend it.

That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die — I have shown the propriety of this simile of the apostle in the note on John 12:24, to which I must refer the reader. A grain of wheat, c., is composed of the body or lobes, and the germ. The latter forms an inconsiderable part of the mass of the grain the body, lobes, or farinaceous part, forms nearly the whole. This body dies-becomes decomposed, and forms a fine earth, from which the germ derives its first nourishment; by the nourishment thus derived the germ is quickened, receives its first vegetable life, and through this means is rendered capable of deriving the rest of its nourishment and support from the grosser earth in which the grain was deposited. Whether the apostle would intimate here that there is a certain germ in the present body, which shall become the seed of the resurrection body, this is not the place to inquire; and on this point I can with pleasure refer to Mr. Drew's work on the "Resurrection of the Human Body;" where this subject, as well as every other subject connected with this momentous question, is considered in a very luminous and cogently argumentative point of view.


 
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