What Does Mark 3:8 Mean in the King James?
And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him.
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 report of what he is doing becomes a force of movement, gathering people from every direction toward him.
THE MEANING
You are addressed by a scene in which news of his work crosses boundaries: people come from Jerusalem, Idumaea, beyond the Jordan, and the regions around Tyre and Sidon. Hearing becomes movement toward him, and the multitude gathers across distance and origin. The name Jerusalem echoes the wholeness named by the Hebrew word שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), while the crowd comes from beyond that center.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Access to him belongs only to those near the center or already inside the familiar boundary.
THE ROOT
ἀκούσαντες
akousantes
GROWS FROM
ἀκου-
akou-
Hear, listen, or receive through hearing.
The word-family holds hearing and what is heard together: the Greek noun ἀκοή (akoē, hearing or report) names both the act and the message received. Here hearing is the hinge between news of his ongoing work and the crowd’s movement toward him.
ALSO GROWS
akouō: to hear, listen to, or learn by hearing
ἀκούω
This is the verb beneath the crowd’s “having heard.”
akoē: hearing; a report received by hearing
ἀκοή
This noun appears in Romans 10:17, where hearing is connected with the arrival of trust.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
sh-l-m
Wholeness or completeness, the root carried by shalom.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) in a dual form, the two wholenesses. In this scene, people from that named center gather with those arriving from beyond its borders, as if wholeness draws a multitude together.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness, completeness
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness echoed in the name Yerushalayim.
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
It shows wholeness as a state of being whole, not merely the absence of conflict.
THE PATTERN
When news of restorative work spreads, people move across boundaries toward its source.
But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.THE THREAD
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.Mark’s verb for “having heard” and Romans’ noun “hearing” come from the same Greek word-family. Romans connects hearing with trust; Mark shows hearing taking bodily form as a multitude moving toward him.
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