What Does Mark 12:1 Mean in the King James?
And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.
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 vineyard is not given away but leased into the workers’ hands: their care begins without ownership.
THE MEANING
You receive something already alive and provisioned, with boundaries and watchfulness built around it. Its care can rest in your hands without becoming yours to originate or own. Even when its source seems far away, the vineyard still bears the mark of its owner.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this dissolves is that whatever you tend belongs to you simply because it is in your care.
THE ROOT
ἐξέδετο
exedeto
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give, grant, or hand over.
“Let it out” translates ἐξέδετο (exedeto), from ἐκδίδωμι (ekdidōmi), meaning “to lease out”: the owner gives the vineyard into use without giving away its source. The same δίδωμι (didōmi) root underlies “will give” in Mark 12:9, linking the initial entrusting to the later transfer.
ALSO GROWS
ekdidōmi: To lease or rent out.
ἐκδίδωμι
This is the verb behind “let it out”: the workers receive use and responsibility, not the vineyard’s origin.
paradidōmi: To hand over or deliver.
παραδίδωμι
It shows the root’s sense of transferring something into another’s hands, as the owner does with the vineyard.
apodidōmi: To give back, render, or repay.
ἀποδίδωμι
It carries the possibility that what is entrusted may be rendered back to its source.
φραγμόν
phragmon
GROWS FROM
φράσσω
phrassō
To fence in, enclose, or block.
The hedge is a stopping boundary: the same Greek root can describe mouths being stopped in Romans 3:19. The vineyard is not only planted; it is enclosed, with a limit built around what has been prepared.
ALSO GROWS
phragmos: A fence, hedge, or barrier.
φραγμός
This is the noun used for the vineyard’s enclosure, showing that its provision includes a boundary.
phrassō: To fence in, block, or stop.
φράσσω
Romans 3:19 uses this verb for mouths being stopped, revealing the blocking action contained in the word for hedge.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted for cultivation is prepared by another, while its fruit remains answerable to that source.
And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.THE THREAD
What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.The verb behind “let it out,” ἐκδίδωμι (ekdidōmi), meaning “lease out,” shares the root δίδωμι (didōmi), “give,” with “will give,” δώσει (dōsei). The owner first entrusts the vineyard, then destroys the husbandmen and gives it to others; the workers’ possession remains subject to the one who entrusted it.
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