What Does Mark 10:5 Mean in the King James?
And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
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 precept is written because the heart is hardened; the rule exposes the condition it meets rather than making that condition the design.
THE MEANING
The verse locates the written precept in a hardened heart: it answers a condition the heart carries now. Hardness shapes what must be addressed, but it does not by itself reveal the heart’s intended form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A rule that makes room for hardness proves that hardness is the intended design.
THE ROOT
σκληροκαρδίαν
sklērokardian
GROWS FROM
σκληρ-
sklēr-
hard, stiff, resistant
“hardness” in this verse is sklērokardian. The word joins σκληρός (sklēros, hard) with καρδία (kardia, heart): the heart is not absent, but resistant. Related words describe hardening as a process and stiffness as a posture, revealing the precept as an answer to resistance rather than proof that resistance is the heart’s original shape.
ALSO GROWS
sklēros: hard, harsh
σκληρός
This adjective supplies the hard quality in the compound, pointing to resistance rather than simply a lack of tenderness.
sklērynō: to harden
σκληρύνω
The verb names hardening as something that happens, so the condition in the verse is not merely a fixed identity.
sklērotrachēlos: stiff-necked
σκληροτράχηλος
This related compound carries hardness into bodily posture, showing resistance as something enacted.
THE PATTERN
A hardened heart is a condition Scripture exposes and addresses, not the measure of the heart’s intended form.
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.THE THREAD
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.Matthew uses the same compound σκληροκαρδία (sklērokardia, hardness of heart), then adds the line just beyond this verse: “but from the beginning it was not so.” The shared word shows the precept addressing a hardened condition while distinguishing that condition from the original design.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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