What Does Mark 16:6 Mean in the King James?

And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

Mark 16:6 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The tomb is named as the place they laid him, but the verb says he has been raised beyond its reach.

THE MEANING

The announcement meets fear with this: Jesus is raised, and the grave is no longer where he is. The empty place shows that death has not held him.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the certainty that a grave is the final location of the one laid there.

THE ROOT

ἠγέρθη

ēgerthē

GROWS FROM

⁨ἐγείρω⁩ (egeirō; stem ⁨ἐγειρ-⁩)

To wake, rouse, or raise from lying down or death.

The word translated “risen” is a form of the verb meaning “raised” or “roused.” The same verb can describe waking someone from sleep, so the verse holds awakening and rising from death in one word.

ALSO GROWS

awake: To rouse someone from sleep.

The disciples use this same verb to wake Jesus in the boat; here the verb names his raising from death.

arise: To rise at a command, including from death.

Jesus speaks this same verb to the girl lying dead, connecting her rising with the announcement that he is risen.

THE PATTERN

The place marked by death does not have the final claim on the life God raises.

O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

Psalm 30:3 · KJVLife is described as brought up from the grave and kept from the pit; death does not hold the final claim.

Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.

Ezekiel 37:12 · KJVThe graves open, and those within them come up into life; the place of death gives way.

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:4 · KJVThe raising of Christ opens into newness of life in the reader’s present walk.

THE THREAD

And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.

Mark 5:41 · KJV

“Arise” is the same Greek verb as “risen” in this verse. The verb that calls a girl out of death is the one that names Jesus as raised.

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