What Does Mark 5:5 Mean in the King James?
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
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 verb translated “cutting himself” belongs to a Greek word family that also names mourning, so the wounds carry grief in the language of the verse.
THE MEANING
When suffering closes around you, it can seem to occupy every hour and every place; this verse gives that engulfment an unsoftened image. The cry and bodily injury remain visible together, with no pause in the scene.
THE ROOT
κατακόπτων
katakoptōn
GROWS FROM
κοπ-
kop-
Cut, strike; in a middle form, beat oneself in grief.
“cutting himself” in this verse is katakoptōn. The English “cutting” can sound like an isolated action, but this Greek word belongs to a family that also names beating the breast and mourning. That makes the bodily wounds resonate with grief without turning the verse’s self-injury into a metaphor.
ALSO GROWS
ekkoptō: Cut out; cut off.
ἐκκόπτω
This related verb keeps the root’s concrete sense of cutting in view.
koptomai: Beat the breast; mourn, lament.
κόπτομαι
The same word family can describe grief expressed through the body, deepening the force of the wounds in this verse.
μνημείοις
mnēmeíois
GROWS FROM
μνημ-
mnēm-
Memory, remembrance.
“tombs” in this verse is mnēmeíois. The Greek word for tomb belongs to a family of words for remembrance. The setting is therefore not only a place of burial but a landscape marked by what is remembered about the dead.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: Memory; remembrance.
μνήμη
It makes explicit the remembrance carried in the word for tomb.
mimnēskō: Remember; call to mind.
μιμνῄσκω
This related verb shows the same root of remembrance at work as an action.
THE PATTERN
Anguish takes shape through both the body and the place a person inhabits.
And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.THE THREAD
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.The Greek verb κατακόπτων (katakoptōn, cutting or gashing) contains the root κοπ- (kop-, cut or strike), which also appears in Revelation’s “shall wail.” The shared root lets bodily cutting and mourning stand in one word family, while Mark’s verse still describes actual injury.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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