What Does Mark 5:13 Mean in the King James?
And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.
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
Mark uses the same Greek choking word for the herd’s drowning and for thorns that smother seed, so the physical disaster echoes the peril of a life with no room to bear fruit.
THE MEANING
You see a destructive presence leave one living being, enter another host, and drive an entire herd into a fatal plunge. Mark calls the herd’s end “choked”; the same Greek word family elsewhere describes seed and the word being choked before fruit appears. The verse holds a concrete death and an image of suffocation together without making one cancel the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The idea that a force is harmless once it leaves its first host is undone: its next movement ends in the herd’s death.
THE ROOT
ἐπνίγοντο
epnigonto
GROWS FROM
πνιγ-
pnig-
To choke, suffocate, or drown.
“choked” in this verse is epnigonto. The same Greek verb family describes this herd drowning and thorns choking seed and the word. Here the choking image reaches a bodily, terminal form; elsewhere it names what keeps growth from bearing fruit.
ALSO GROWS
sympnigousin: They choke or crowd and choke.
συμπνίγουσιν
Mark 4:19 uses this form for cares, riches, and desires choking the word.
sympnigontai: They are choked.
συμπνίγονται
Luke 8:14 uses this form for people choked by the cares and pleasures of life.
πνεύματα
pneumata
GROWS FROM
πνέω
pneō
To blow or breathe; πνεῦμα can mean breath, wind, or spirit.
The KJV says “spirits,” but Greek uses pneuma, a word that also means breath and wind. The same word carries through the movement here: the unclean pneuma go out and enter another living host.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To breathe or blow.
πνέω
This verb makes the breath and wind meanings part of the same word family.
pnoē: Breath or blowing.
πνοή
This related noun keeps the breath sense visible beneath the English distinction.
THE PATTERN
In the Greek choking word family, choking can describe what overwhelms a body or smothers growth before it bears fruit.
And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.THE THREAD
And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.Mark uses the same Greek choking stem here for the herd’s drowning and for the cares, riches, and desires that choke the word. The physical ending makes the inward image harder to miss: choking leaves no room for fruit.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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