What Does Mark 6:36 Mean in the King James?
Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.
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 proposed cure for shared hunger is to turn one crowd’s need into many private errands.
THE MEANING
The verse puts a plan into the disciples’ mouths: the hungry crowd should be dismissed so each person can purchase food. A shared lack becomes a set of private errands, with the group’s hunger no longer held at the center. The next line keeps the people present and changes the question to what can be given.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It challenges the assumption that a crowd’s hunger can only be answered by dispersing people to provide for themselves.
THE ROOT
ἀπόλυσον
apolyson
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
To loosen or release; ἀπόλυω combines this with ἀπό (apo), “away.”
“Send them away” in this verse is apolyson. The Greek verb carries the sense of releasing or dismissing the people from the gathering. The proposed solution sends them into separate journeys toward a purchase; the next verse presses against that release by keeping them here.
ALSO GROWS
lyō: Loosen, release
λύω
This is the core action within the verb: sending the crowd away also means releasing them from the present gathering.
apolysis: Release, dismissal
ἀπόλυσις
This related noun names a dismissal, bringing out the sense of letting the people go from the place where their need is visible.
THE PATTERN
When a crowd’s need is visible, provision can meet it where people are instead of making each person secure it alone.
But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.And there came a man from Baal-shalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat.And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.THE THREAD
He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?The next line answers “send them away” with “give ye them to eat,” shifting the response from dismissal to provision. The disciples still imagine a purchase, but the hungry crowd remains present as the question turns to feeding them.
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