The verb appears a single time, in Matthew 13:30, within the parable of the wheat and the tares: “Let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time I will tell the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat into my barn.’ ” (Matthew 13:30). The term, translated “grow together,” provides the pivotal command by which Jesus frames the entire parable.

Agricultural Imagery and First-Century Palestine

Listeners in Galilee were well acquainted with the practice of sowing wheat and the menace of darnel, an almost indistinguishable weed that threatened a crop’s purity. By instructing that both be allowed to “grow together,” Jesus invokes customary farming wisdom: premature weeding could damage the young wheat because the roots of the two plants intertwined. The realism of this detail authenticated the parable for a first-century audience while laying the groundwork for a profound spiritual analogy.

Eschatological Patience and Divine Timing

The command to let the two “grow together” underscores God’s sovereign timing. Immediate judgment is withheld, not because the Judge is indifferent, but because the fullness of maturity has not yet arrived. The motif echoes Habakkuk 2:3—“though it delays, wait for it,”—and anticipates Revelation 14:15, where the angel announces that “the harvest of the earth is ripe.” The interval between sowing and harvest thus becomes a season of mercy, extending opportunity for repentance while simultaneously allowing evil to reveal its true nature.

Implications for the Visible Church

Within the community of professing believers, authentic faith and counterfeit profession develop side by side. Attempts at absolute ecclesiastical purity before the end of the age risk harming true believers and usurping the prerogative of Christ, “the righteous Judge” (2 Timothy 4:8). The parable therefore cautions against an overly zealous separatism that confuses discipline with wholesale uprooting.

Guidance for Personal Ministry

1. Discernment without rash judgment. Believers are called to test spirits and fruit (1 John 4:1; Matthew 7:16) yet leave final separation to the Lord.
2. Perseverance in mixed settings. Faithful witness often takes place amid opposition or compromise, paralleling wheat maturing beside weeds.
3. Hope in ultimate vindication. Just as the barn awaited the wheat, so “there is reserved for you a crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:8).

Old Testament Resonances

The instruction recalls Exodus 12:42, where the Lord “kept vigil” over His people until the appointed night of deliverance, and Isaiah 28:24-29, which portrays the farmer as wisely timing his plowing and threshing. Such passages reinforce the theme that God’s governance of history follows a measured cadence designed for both justice and redemption.

Christological Significance

Jesus identifies Himself implicitly as both Sower and Judge. He sows good seed (Matthew 13:37) and, at the harvest, commands the angels who “will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin” (Matthew 13:41). The verb’s solitary appearance, nestled within a dominical saying, therefore magnifies Christ’s dual role: sustaining grace during the present age and executing perfect judgment at its close.

Pastoral Exhortations

• Cultivate patience: “Therefore be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7).
• Guard hope: “The one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13).
• Maintain vigilance: while coexistence is permitted, collusion with evil is not (Ephesians 5:11).

Summary

Strong’s Greek 4885, by portraying the side-by-side growth of wheat and weeds, anchors a theology of delayed judgment that highlights God’s patience, safeguards the church from destructive zeal, and assures believers of an inevitable, righteous harvest when Christ returns.