What Does Mark 13:33 Mean in the King James?
Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
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 verse joins two kinds of attention, seeing clearly and staying awake, because the decisive moment remains unknown.
THE MEANING
Your present remains open to a moment whose timing you cannot know. “Take heed” carries the sense of seeing, while “watch” adds the image of staying awake; prayer turns that alertness toward God. The uncertainty is part of the verse, not a gap a timetable can fill.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that readiness depends on knowing when the moment will come: the verse says its timing is unknown.
THE ROOT
ἀγρυπνεῖτε
agrypneite
GROWS FROM
ἀγρυπν- (ἀγρυπνέω, agrypneō)
Stay awake, remain sleepless, keep watch.
“watch” in this verse is agrypneite. The Greek word evokes staying awake, while the preceding command, “take heed,” comes from a verb meaning “see.” Together they picture attention that keeps its eyes open instead of drifting into sleep.
ALSO GROWS
agrypnia: Sleeplessness; watchings.
ἀγρυπνία
This related noun is also used for “watchings,” making the wakeful quality of the command concrete.
agrypnos: Sleepless; wakeful.
ἄγρυπνος
The related adjective names the state of remaining awake that the command calls for.
βλέπετε
blepete
GROWS FROM
βλεπ- (βλέπω, blepō)
See, look, notice.
“Take heed” begins with the language of sight. Paired with “watch,” it makes the verse’s alertness both perceptive and wakeful.
ALSO GROWS
blepō: See; look.
βλέπω
This is the verb’s base form, showing that heed begins as an act of seeing.
anablepō: Look up; regain sight.
ἀναβλέπω
This compound uses the same see-root in the language of sight returning, echoing the verse’s emphasis on open perception.
καιρός
kairos
GROWS FROM
καιρ-
kairos
A fitting or decisive time; a season or occasion.
“time” in this verse is kairos. The verse says the hearer does not know when this occasion arrives. Readiness therefore lives in attention, not in possession of its timing.
ALSO GROWS
eukairos: Timely; opportune.
εὔκαιρος
This related word describes an occasion as fitting or well-timed.
eukairia: Opportunity; convenient occasion.
εὐκαιρία
This branch carries kairos into the sense of an opening or opportunity, giving “the time” the texture of an arriving moment.
THE PATTERN
When the decisive moment cannot be scheduled, scripture presents readiness as watchful attention that stays awake.
Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.THE THREAD
Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.Luke uses the same Greek verb, ἀγρυπνέω, for “watch,” carrying the sense of staying awake, and again joins it to prayer. Its added aim, escaping what comes and standing before the Son of man, shows what this wakeful attention faces.
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