What Does Mark 1:23 Mean in the King James?
And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word translated “spirit” is pneuma, breath, wind, spirit, so the unseen presence is named as movement and made audible in the man’s cry.
THE MEANING
An unclean spirit is present among the gathered people, and a man cries out. The hidden presence becomes impossible to keep abstract when it enters their shared hearing. Pneuma (πνεῦμα, breath, wind, spirit) keeps the unseen mover joined to what can be heard.
THE ROOT
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνε-/πνο- (from πνέω, pneō)
To breathe or blow; breath or moving air.
The word rendered “spirit” belongs to the same Greek word family as breath and wind. The verse names an unseen movement that becomes perceptible through the cry.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To breathe or blow.
πνέω
The verb names the movement behind pneuma: air in motion, felt by what it does.
pnoē: Breath or blowing.
πνοή
This related noun makes the breath and wind meanings audible within the same word family.
ἀκαθάρτῳ
akathartō
GROWS FROM
καθαρ-
kathar-
Clean or pure.
The Greek word ἀκάθαρτος (akathartos, unclean) is formed with a- before καθαρ- (kathar-, clean): the word keeps its relation to what is clean within it. The same family includes cleansing, so the description carries the contrast between uncleanness and being cleansed.
ALSO GROWS
katharos: Clean or pure.
καθαρός
This is the positive form whose root remains inside the word translated “unclean.”
katharizō: To cleanse or make clean.
καθαρίζω
This verb shows the same root in motion, naming cleansing as the counterpart to the condition described here.
THE PATTERN
What moves unseen becomes perceptible through the effect it produces.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue,A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.THE THREAD
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.John 3:8 uses πνεῦμα (pneuma, breath, wind, spirit) for both “wind” and “Spirit,” the same word rendered “spirit” here. The shared word holds unseen movement and its perceptible effects together.
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