What Does Mark 6:28 Mean in the King James?
And brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother.
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 repeated “gave” carries a severed head from hand to hand in the grammar of ordinary transfer.
THE MEANING
Here the violence arrives in a carried head on a platter, then passes from one person to another. The same verb marks both handoffs, showing how a demand turns a human body into an object passed between people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that giving is inherently generous: here, handing something over carries a severed head and extends violence.
THE ROOT
ἔδωκεν
edōken
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι (didōmi), verbal stem δο-/δω-
To give, grant, or place something into another’s hands.
“gave” in this verse is edōken. The verse uses this verb for both transfers: the head is given to the girl, and the girl gives it to her mother. The same plain word frames each handoff, making the violence move through a chain of human actions.
ALSO GROWS
dosis: A giving; a gift.
δόσις
This branch names the act of giving itself, which here carries something gruesome rather than generous.
dotēs: A giver.
δότης
The word brings the people doing the handing into view: each person becomes the giver of the next transfer.
ἤνεγκεν
ēnenken
GROWS FROM
φέρω (pherō; aorist stem ἐνεγκ-)
To carry, bear, or bring.
“brought” in this verse is ēnenken. The verse first makes the violence literal: someone carries the head into the room. Before it is passed onward, the head is borne in as a physical object.
ALSO GROWS
phoreō: To bear or carry; to wear.
φορέω
This related verb keeps the physical sense of bearing present in the verse’s opening action.
phoros: Tribute or tax.
φόρος
This word is related to what is borne or carried; beside the head carried into the room, it shows how the root can name something carried as a burden or due.
THE PATTERN
Violence advances through handoffs, as a person or body is moved into another’s control.
Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.THE THREAD
And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.Mark 6:28 uses δίδωμι (didōmi, “give”) for both transfers. Mark 15:15 uses παραδίδωμι (paradidōmi, “hand over”), a compound built on the same verb; together, the verses expose violence moving from one person’s hands into another’s.
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