What Does Mark 3:20 Mean in the King James?
And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.
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 Greek word for “multitude” belongs to the same word family as “trouble,” so the crowd’s pressure is already inside the sentence before the meal disappears.
THE MEANING
The gathering fills the house so completely that the people there cannot even eat bread. You can recognize how a press of other people’s needs can narrow the space around ordinary nourishment, whether or not anyone intends harm.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a crowd is harmless as long as its members mean well: sheer pressure can displace basic nourishment.
THE ROOT
ὄχλος
ochlos
GROWS FROM
ὀχλ-
ochl-
Crowd or mass, with a related sense of disturbance or trouble.
“multitude” in this verse is ochlos. The Greek word family holds both the crowd and the act of troubling: ὄχλος names the mass, while ὀχλέω can mean to trouble or disturb. That shade fits the verse’s effect, the gathering presses so closely that even eating is out of reach.
ALSO GROWS
ochleō: To trouble, disturb, or harass
ὀχλέω
This related verb gives the crowd word a shade of pressure that fits a gathering which blocks even a meal.
enochleō: To trouble or annoy
ἐνοχλέω
The same stem remains in this prefixed form, underscoring the disturbance the crowd’s presence can bring.
δύνασθαι
dynasthai
GROWS FROM
δυνα-
dyna-
To be able; to have capacity or power.
“could not” in this verse is dynasthai. The verse names a loss of capacity: the people cannot even perform the basic act of eating. The gathering has pressed in until ordinary bodily nourishment no longer fits.
ALSO GROWS
dynamis: Power or ability
δύναμις
The related noun makes the capacity at stake explicit: the crowd leaves no room even for this basic ability.
dynatos: Able, capable, or powerful
δυνατός
This adjective shares the capacity-root, highlighting that the verse describes inability rather than unwillingness.
THE PATTERN
Collective urgency makes bodily nourishment visible, whether it is crowded out, urgently sought, or feared lost.
And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.THE THREAD
And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.Mark 6:31 uses the same Greek form, φαγεῖν (phagein, “to eat”), and repeats the same consequence: people coming and going leave no room even for a meal. The repeated word makes this bodily cost part of the crowding pattern, not a passing detail.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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