What Does Mark 5:3 Mean in the King James?
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 for tomb carries the sense of a memorial, placing a living person among the markers of lives ended while chains fail to contain him.
THE MEANING
You meet a living person settled among the tombs, where no person can bind him, even with chains. The verse holds those realities together: his dwelling is among the dead, yet human force cannot contain him.
THE ROOT
μνήμασιν
mnēmasin
GROWS FROM
μνημ-
mnēm-
A memorial or tomb: a place that marks and recalls the dead.
The Greek word for tomb belongs to the language of remembrance. The man’s dwelling is among memorials to the dead, a sharper image than the English word “tombs” alone may convey.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: Memory or remembrance.
μνήμη
It makes the remembering sense within the word for tomb visible.
anamnēsis: Remembrance or recollection.
ἀνάμνησις
It shares the same remembrance family, echoing the memorial quality of the place where he dwells.
δῆσαι
dēsai
GROWS FROM
δέω
deō
To bind, tie, or fasten.
“bind” in this verse is dēsai. The Greek verb names the act of fastening, while the verse says no person can accomplish it, not even with a chain. The next verse repeats this same verb as it describes bonds being broken.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: A bond or fastening.
δεσμός
It names the restraint that the verb describes making.
desmios: A bound person or prisoner.
δέσμιος
It shows how binding can define a person’s condition, while this verse says that condition cannot be imposed on him by chains.
κατοίκησιν
katoikēsin
GROWS FROM
οἰκ-
oik-
The word family of home and inhabiting; here, a settled dwelling.
The Greek presents this as his dwelling, not a place he merely passes through. The word’s house-and-inhabiting family makes the tombs his settled place in the scene.
ALSO GROWS
oikos: A house or household.
οἶκος
It reveals the home-related root within “dwelling.”
oikeō: To live or dwell in a place.
οἰκέω
It shares the inhabiting sense and reinforces that this is where he lives.
THE PATTERN
Chains can mark captivity, but release comes when the bonds themselves are broken.
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, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.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.Mark 5:4 uses the same Greek verb δέω (deō, to bind) as this verse. It shows the repeated pattern behind the claim: chains are put on, then broken, while no person can tame him.
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