What Does Mark 15:30 Mean in the King James?
Save thyself, and come down from the cross.
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 taunt makes escape from the cross its test of deliverance, exposing how quickly power is reduced to self-preservation.
THE MEANING
The line is a taunt: it makes immediate self-rescue the test of whether deliverance is real. It reaches the reader wherever suffering is mistaken for proof of powerlessness, revealing the narrow measure built into the mockers’ words.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A failure to escape suffering proves that no deliverance is present.
THE ROOT
σῶσον
sōson
GROWS FROM
σώζω
sōzō
To deliver, rescue, or bring safely through.
“Save” in this verse is sōson. The verb belongs to the same Greek family as “deliverer” and “deliverance,” joining the act of bringing out with the state of being brought through. The mockers narrow that whole family to immediate self-extraction, as if deliverance can only mean escaping the cross.
ALSO GROWS
sōtēr: Deliverer; one who rescues.
σωτήρ
The related noun names the one who delivers, echoing the taunt’s demand that Jesus prove himself by rescuing himself.
sōtēria: Deliverance; rescue.
σωτηρία
This related noun names the deliverance the mockers reduce to a visible escape from suffering.
THE PATTERN
Mockery demands that deliverance prove itself through immediate escape.
He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.THE THREAD
Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save.The next taunt repeats the same Greek root: “He saved others; himself he cannot save.” The shared word makes the contradiction audible: they name his deliverance of others, then insist that deliverance must take the form of self-rescue.
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