What Does Mark 4:33 Mean in the King James?
And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.
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
Each parable sets an image beside the word, so meaning reaches the hearer through comparison.
THE MEANING
The word reaches the reader through many parables, with each image set beside what it means. Hearing has a measure: the word is spoken as the hearers can receive it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that hearing is all-or-nothing: a person can receive the word in the measure they can hear now.
THE ROOT
παραβολαῖς
parabolais
GROWS FROM
βάλλω
ballō
To throw or cast; joined with para-, it forms the sense of placing alongside.
“parables” in this verse is parabolais. A parable is a comparison set beside the word: meaning comes through an image placed alongside it. The English word can sound like a story category, while the Greek keeps the motion of setting one thing beside another.
ALSO GROWS
paraballō: To place beside; compare.
παραβάλλω
This verb carries the action inside parabolē: an image is placed beside the word so the hearer can approach its meaning through comparison.
bolē: A cast or throw.
βολή
In Luke’s phrase “a stone’s cast,” bolē marks the reach of something thrown; parabolē adds para-, setting one thing beside another.
ἠδύναντο
ēdynanto
GROWS FROM
δύναμαι (dynamai), δυνα- (dyna-)
To be able or capable; to have strength or power.
The verse describes hearing in terms of capacity: the word is spoken as far as the hearers are able to receive it. The Greek family also names power and capability, giving “able to hear” a sense of capacity rather than mere sound reaching the ear.
ALSO GROWS
dynamis: Power, ability, capacity.
δύναμις
This branch makes the capacity in “able to hear” explicit: hearing here is bounded by what the hearers can take in.
dynatos: Able, capable, powerful.
δυνατός
The same family describes what someone is capable of, reinforcing that the verse measures the speech by the hearers’ capacity.
THE PATTERN
Speech meets hearers at the measure they can bear.
Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.THE THREAD
Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.Matthew uses the same word translated “parables”, Greek παραβολή (parabolē), a comparison set beside, and shows that an image can be present without being received. Mark’s phrase “as they were able to hear” names the limit as capacity; Matthew shows what it looks like when hearing does not become understanding.
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