What Does Mark 16:13 Mean in the King James?
And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.
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
A message can reach its hearers and still fail at the point of trust.
THE MEANING
Hearing a report and trusting the person who brings it are distinct: the message is spoken, yet the hearers do not lean their weight on its witnesses. That gap remains recognizable whenever words reach you without becoming trustworthy to you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being told something does not mean it has been trusted.
THE ROOT
ἐπίστευσαν
episteusan
GROWS FROM
πιστ-
pist-
Trust; to lean your weight on what is trustworthy.
“believed” in this verse is episteusan. The Greek word-family carries more than accepting a statement as true: it brings the idea of trust and reliance into view. Its branches connect believing with trust itself and with being trustworthy, showing that this moment turns on whether the witnesses are relied upon, not merely whether their report is heard.
ALSO GROWS
pistis: Trust; reliance.
πίστις
This noun names the trust that the hearers do not place in the witnesses.
pistos: Trustworthy; steady.
πιστός
This branch brings the question of a witness’s trustworthiness into view alongside the hearer’s response.
THE PATTERN
A report, even when joined by visible signs, can be present without being trusted.
Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him:THE THREAD
And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.Luke uses the same Greek verb family, pisteuō (πιστεύω), for believing. Here the report sounds like empty words; in Mark, it is told and still not trusted, the same gap between hearing a witness and leaning on what the witness says.
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