What Does Mark 12:4 Mean in the King James?
And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled.
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 same sending verb names both the owner’s reach toward the tenants and their attempt to send the servant away.
THE MEANING
The owner keeps reaching through a servant, and the tenants answer with stones and humiliation. The one sent carries the owner’s claim, so the attack on him is also a refusal of the one who sends him. The verse shows rejection becoming physical and public.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that rejection settles the matter dissolves here: sending the servant away does not cancel the owner’s claim.
THE ROOT
ἀπέστειλεν
apesteilen
GROWS FROM
ἀποστέλλω
apostellō
To send forth or dispatch.
“sent / sent him away” in this verse is apesteilen. The Greek uses the same verb when the owner sends the servant and when the tenants send him away. One sending carries the owner’s claim; the other tries to expel its bearer, but does not erase where he came from.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: A sent one; a messenger.
ἀπόστολος
The servant is not acting on his own behalf: he carries the one who sends him.
apostolē: A sending or commission.
ἀποστολή
The violence falls on someone who arrives with an entrusted purpose.
ἠτίμασαν
ētimasan
GROWS FROM
τιμ-
tim-
Value, price, or honor.
“shamefully handled” in this verse is ētimasan. The verb means to dishonor, to treat someone as though they have no worth. Its root also names value and preciousness, so the verse holds a sharp contrast: the tenants strip the servant of honor, but their contempt cannot decide his value.
ALSO GROWS
timē: Honor, value, or price.
τιμή
This is the worth the tenants refuse to recognize in the servant.
timios: Precious, valuable, or honored.
τίμιος
The same root can name what is precious, revealing how dishonor treats as worthless what may still be valued by the sender.
THE PATTERN
When people refuse the sender’s claim, they turn their violence on the messengers who carry it.
But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:THE THREAD
To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,Mark’s word for dishonor, ἀτιμάζω (atimazō, treat as without honor), belongs to the τιμή (timē, value or honor) family. Peter uses τίμιος (timios, precious or valuable) for the stone people reject: human contempt does not determine what is precious.
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