What Does Mark 5:1-3 Mean in the King James?
And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
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 translated “spirit” also means “breath,” placing breath-language inside a scene of tombs and failed chains.
THE MEANING
A person can be surrounded by death-marked places while human restraint fails to contain the condition. The verse calls the breath unclean, yet still names its bearer as a man; the condition does not erase the person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that enough human force can contain every condition.
THE ROOT
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνευ-
pneu-
Breathe or blow; the word names breath and the movement of air.
English gives this word as “spirit,” while its Greek word-family also names breathing and breath. The translation’s single choice can hide that these meanings share one word.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: Breathe or blow
πνέω
This verb shows the bodily movement carried in the same word-family as pneuma.
pnoē: Breath or breeze
πνοή
This related noun makes the breath-sense audible beside the verse’s “spirit.”
δῆσαι
dēsai
GROWS FROM
δε-/δεσ- (de-/des-)
Tie, fasten, bind.
The same word-family gives both the act of binding and the bond that holds someone. The verse makes that mechanism the limit of human control: no one can bind him.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: Bond or chain
δεσμός
The bond is the thing produced by binding, making the restraint itself part of the same root-family.
desmios: A bound person or prisoner
δέσμιος
This branch names the person by the condition of being bound, the very condition no one can impose on the man here.
κατοίκησιν
katoikēsin
GROWS FROM
οἰκ-
oik-
House, home, or inhabiting.
The word for dwelling belongs to the language of house and habitation, so the tombs are more than a place he passes through. They are where he is settled, making death-marked space his home.
ALSO GROWS
oikos: House or home
οἶκος
This is the concrete home-word within the same family as dwelling.
oikeō: Inhabit or dwell
οἰκέω
The verb shows dwelling as an ongoing inhabiting, not a brief encounter with a place.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places death-marked confinement beside bonds that break and doors that open.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.THE THREAD
Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.Verse 3’s “bind” and verse 4’s “bound” are forms of δέω (deō, to bind). The next verse shows this is a recurring failure: chains hold him only temporarily before breaking.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us