What Does Mark 14:65 Mean in the King James?
And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, Prophesy: and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands.
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 attackers cover him and then demand that he see, turning concealment into a test they control.
THE MEANING
This verse exposes a living mechanism: a face is covered, a body is struck, and “Prophesy” becomes a taunt that makes revelation answer to the attackers’ terms. The blows do not seek insight; they turn the moment into a display of control over the one being questioned.
THE ROOT
περικαλύπτω
perikalyptō
GROWS FROM
καλύπτω
kalyptō
to cover, conceal
The verb joins περί (perí, around) to καλύπτω (kalyptō, cover), making the action a covering over him. The next command, “Prophesy,” asks for disclosure while the action conceals him; the same root appears in ἀποκαλύπτω (apokalyptō, uncover, reveal), so concealment and revelation belong to one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
kalyptō: to cover, conceal
καλύπτω
This is the seed within “cover”; the taunt follows an act that hides him.
apokalyptō: to uncover, reveal
ἀποκαλύπτω
The shared root makes the scene’s demand for revelation ring against the covering.
κολαφίζω
kolaphizō
GROWS FROM
κολαφίζω
kolaphizō
to strike, especially with the fist
“buffet” in this verse is kolaphizō. The Greek verb names forceful bodily blows, often understood as striking with the fist. That force stands beside the separate slaps at the verse’s end, so the violence arrives as a succession of humiliations rather than one vague act.
ALSO GROWS
kolaphos: a blow, especially a blow with the fist
κόλαφος
The noun names the kind of blow carried by the verb used for “buffet.”
kolaphizō: to strike with blows, to buffet
κολαφίζω
This verb makes the violence in the scene explicit and physical.
ῥάπισμα
rhapisma
GROWS FROM
ῥαπίζω
rhapizō
to slap, strike with a blow
“palms of their hands” in this verse is rhapisma. The Greek noun means a slap or blow; the KJV’s concrete phrase lets the reader picture the hand that delivers it. John uses this same noun for a blow against Jesus during questioning, linking the slap to a wider pattern of public humiliation.
ALSO GROWS
rhapizō: to slap, strike
ῥαπίζω
This verb names the action behind the noun for the blows at the end of the verse.
rhapisma: a slap, a blow
ῥάπισμα
This noun names the blow itself and recurs in John’s account of Jesus being struck.
THE PATTERN
Power answers exposed truth with bodily humiliation when speech cannot be controlled.
But Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near, and smote Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto thee?I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth.THE THREAD
And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so?Mark’s “palms of their hands” and John’s “palm of his hand” use the same Greek noun, ῥάπισμα (rhapisma, a slap or blow). That shared word connects the covering and taunting in Mark to the blow that enforces the public questioning in John.
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