What Does Mark 14:52 Mean in the King James?
And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.
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 escape itself strips him bare: the cloth stays in their hands while he gets away.
THE MEANING
Here, escape and exposure arrive together: the body gets away, but its covering stays behind. The verse holds the difference between getting out of danger and remaining intact; the first happens while the second does not.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that getting away always means keeping yourself intact dissolves here: he escapes, but the covering does not escape with him.
THE ROOT
καταλιπών
kataleipōn
GROWS FROM
λείπω
leipō
Leave behind; in related forms, be lacking.
The verb for leaving the cloth behind is built on a root that can also describe what is lacking. The scene holds both shades together: he leaves the cloth, and is left without its covering.
ALSO GROWS
leipō: To leave, or to be lacking.
λείπω
This range makes the departure carry a trace of absence: the cloth is left behind, and its covering is now lacking.
leimma: A remnant; what remains.
λεῖμμα
The cloth remains after he flees, a remnant of what covered him as he runs bare.
γυμνός
gymnos
GROWS FROM
γυμν-
gymn-
Bare, uncovered.
“naked” in this verse is gymnos. The word names a body with nothing covering it. Its word-family includes both the act of stripping bare and the state of nakedness, making the verse’s final detail a concrete exposure, not a flourish.
ALSO GROWS
gymnoō: To make bare or strip naked.
γυμνόω
This verb makes explicit the removal of covering that the fleeing man undergoes.
gymnotēs: Nakedness.
γυμνότης
This noun names the exposed condition that the verse leaves him in.
THE PATTERN
When covering is lost, exposure becomes impossible to ignore.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.THE THREAD
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.The Greek word translated naked here is the same word used for the fleeing man in Mark. Mark shows a body literally without its covering; Hebrews extends that exposure into an image of nothing remaining concealed.
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