What Does Mark 5:4 Mean in the King James?
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.
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
A chain can restrain the body without giving anyone mastery over the person.
THE MEANING
You see two things held together: this man is repeatedly bound, yet no person can bring him under control. The chains are real, and so is their failure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that enough force can make a person governable; here, repeated restraint never becomes mastery.
THE ROOT
δαμάσαι
damasai
GROWS FROM
δαμ-
To subdue, tame, or bring under control.
English gives you “tame,” but the Greek verb carries the force of subduing. The repeated bonds do not prove that anyone has gained mastery; the verse exposes the limit of that power.
ALSO GROWS
damazō: To tame or subdue.
δαμάζω
This is the verb’s dictionary form; it names the act no person in the verse can accomplish.
adamastos: Untamed, unsubdued.
ἀδάμαστος
This related form names the state of remaining beyond subduing, sharpening the limit the verse describes.
δεδέσθαι
dedesthai
GROWS FROM
δέω
deō
To bind or tie.
The verse names physical bonds separately from the act of taming: the body is bound, but human mastery remains out of reach. It holds the restraint and its failure together without suggesting the chains are unreal.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: A bond or fetter.
δεσμός
It makes the literal bond in the scene part of the same word family as “bound.”
desmōtēs: A prisoner, one who is bound.
δεσμώτης
This branch names the person through the bonds placed on them, while the verse shows that being bound does not mean being mastered.
THE PATTERN
Physical restraint can hold a person without producing inward mastery.
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:THE THREAD
For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:James uses the Greek verb δαμάζω (damazō, “to tame or subdue”), the same word family as Mark’s δαμάσαι (damasai, “to tame”). James describes what humans can tame; Mark shows a man no human can bring under control.
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