What Does Mark 2:3 Mean in the King James?

And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four.

Mark 2:3 · 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.

THE KEY

The man who cannot move on his own still comes near because four others lend him their movement.

THE MEANING

The verse holds a person who cannot move unaided in the center of an approach to Jesus. His nearness is made possible through the shared movement of four others; need does not erase his access.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

If I cannot get there under my own power, I have no way to come near.

THE ROOT

αἰρόμενον

airomenon

GROWS FROM

αἴρω

To lift, raise, carry, or take up.

The Greek word behind “borne” is ⁨αἰρόμενον⁩ (airomenon), from ⁨αἴρω⁩ (airō), the verb for lifting or taking up. The four do not merely accompany him: they supply the lift that makes his approach possible.

ALSO GROWS

epairō: Lift up, raise.

ἐπαίρω

This prefixed form keeps the same lifting root, showing the physical action by which others make the man’s approach possible.

apairō: Take away, remove, or depart.

ἀπαίρω

This prefixed form can describe taking away or moving off; here the shared root carries the man toward Jesus.

THE PATTERN

A movement one person cannot sustain becomes possible when others share the carrying.

For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.

Ecclesiastes 4:10 · KJVAnother person supplies the lift when one cannot rise alone.

But Moses’ hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

Exodus 17:12 · KJVAaron and Hur share the weight that Moses cannot hold by himself.

Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2 · KJVThe burden becomes bearable through shared carrying.

THE THREAD

Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?

Mark 2:9 · KJV

The same Greek root behind “borne” in verse 3 appears in “take up” in verse 9. First, others lift the man; then he is told to lift what carried him.

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