Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
Transition from the month to the heart.
Can the fig tree ... - an impossibility: as in James 3:10, it "ought not so to be." James does not, as Matthew 7:16-17, ask, "Do men gather figs of thistles?" His argument is, No tree "can" bring forth fruit inconsistent with its nature, as, e.g., the fig tree, olive berries: so if a man speaks bitterly, and afterward good words, the latter toilet be so only seemingly, and in hypocrisy: they can not be real.
So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. 'Aleph (') A B C read х oute (G3777) halukon (G252) gluku (G1099) poieesai (G4160) hudoor (G5204)] 'neither can a salt (water spring) yield fresh.' So the mouth that emits cursing cannot really emit also blessing.