What Does Mark 2:7 Mean in the King James?
Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?
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 verb translated “forgive” pictures what is missing being sent away, so the question is who has authority to release it.
THE MEANING
This question names the conviction that only God can release what is wrong. It also presses a living possibility: God’s authority may be at work in a human voice that speaks release before the change is visible.
THE ROOT
ἀφίημι
aphiēmi
GROWS FROM
ἵημι (híēmi), with ἀπό (apó)
To send or let go; with ἀπό, to send away or release.
“forgive” in this verse is aphiēmi. The verb carries the image of letting something go from your hold. The question is not only about pardon as a feeling, but about who can release what is missing.
ALSO GROWS
áphesis: Release, remission, deliverance
ἄφεσις
This noun names the release itself; it appears in Luke’s language for deliverance to captives.
aphéntes: Having released, having let go
ἀφέντες
This form makes release an action: what is held can be let go.
ἁμαρτία
hamartía
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
hamart-
Missing or erring; a failure to hit the mark.
“sins” in this verse is hamartía. The question concerns the release of what is missing. Read alongside the verb for release, the phrase holds both the deviation and its letting go together.
ALSO GROWS
hamartánō: To miss, err, or do wrong
ἁμαρτάνω
The verb gives the word for sin an active sense of missing or going astray.
hamártēma: A misdeed or offense
ἁμάρτημα
This branch names the particular wrong that can be released.
THE PATTERN
Release is pictured as what God sends away and what people extend to one another.
I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.THE THREAD
But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,)The same Greek release verb appears again, now joined to the Son of man’s authority on earth. The question in verse 7 opens onto the claim that this authority is present in the speaker.
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