What Does Mark 6:40 Mean in the King James?
And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties.
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
Mark’s Greek pictures the crowd as garden beds repeated across the grass, an image of order that the English word “ranks” conceals.
THE MEANING
The people are arranged in groups of hundreds and fifties, so the multitude takes a shape that can be seen and served. What first looks like one vast crowd becomes distinct groups resting on the grass.
THE ROOT
πρασιαὶ πρασιαὶ
prasiai prasiai
GROWS FROM
πρασιά
prasia
A garden bed or plot, often arranged in rows.
The Greek word means garden beds or plots, and Mark repeats it: bed after bed. “Ranks” preserves the order but loses the image of a green field laid out in cultivated plots.
ALSO GROWS
prasia: Garden bed or plot.
πρασιά
The singular form reveals the image beneath “rank”: each group is pictured as a plot in the field.
prasiai prasiai: Garden beds, garden beds; the repeated plural form in this verse.
πρασιαὶ πρασιαὶ
The repetition presents the arrangement group after group, making the crowd’s order visible.
THE PATTERN
A multitude becomes workable when it is given a clear shape of smaller groups.
And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass.Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:Let all things be done decently and in order.THE THREAD
And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass.The previous verse places the people in companies on green grass; this verse pictures those groups as garden beds, bed after bed. Together, the verses make the crowd look like a field arranged into plots.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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