What Does Mark 5:7 Mean in the King James?
And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.
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 voice names Jesus as the Most High, yet “torment” belongs to a Greek word family linked with the touchstone: recognition feels like exposure to the speaker.
THE MEANING
The voice recognizes Jesus’ rank and immediately pleads for distance and exemption from torment. It invokes God while resisting the one it addresses, so accurate naming and trust do not collapse into the same thing. The verse lets the reader hear fear speak plainly in the presence of authority.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that correct religious language proves trust: the speaker names Jesus accurately and still recoils from his presence.
THE ROOT
βασανίζω
basanizō
GROWS FROM
βασαν-
basan-
The Greek word family carries the sense of testing and torment, and is linked with the touchstone used to test material.
In Greek, βασανίζω (basanizō, to torment or test) belongs to a family linked with βάσανος (básanos, touchstone; torture). That echo lets the plea carry more than fear of pain: it sounds like fear of being brought under a test that reveals what is there.
ALSO GROWS
básanos: Touchstone; also torture or torment.
βάσανος
The touchstone tests what is real; the word’s association with torment lets the plea suggest fear of exposure through ordeal.
basanistēs: Torturer or tormentor.
βασανιστής
This related word names the one who inflicts the ordeal, showing how the word family joins testing with the experience of torment.
ὑψίστου
hypsistou
GROWS FROM
ὑψ-
hyps-
Height or elevation.
By calling Jesus the Son of the Most High God, the voice grants him the highest rank in its own words. Its next words are still resistance; recognition does not itself become welcome.
ALSO GROWS
hypsos: Height or high place.
ὕψος
The title’s image is one of elevation: Jesus is named above the powers the voice fears.
hypsoō: To lift up or exalt.
ὑψόω
This related verb makes the title’s upward language active: to name the Most High is to place Jesus above every rival claim.
THE PATTERN
Encounter with divine authority draws a creature’s hidden condition into speech.
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.THE THREAD
And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?Matthew uses the same βασανίζω (basanizō, torment) word family and adds “before the time.” That phrase makes the fear sound like dread of an appointed ordeal, opening the plea in Mark beyond a simple request to avoid pain.
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