What Does Mark 6:5 Mean in the King James?
And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
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 Greek word-family behind “could” and “mighty work” also holds healing inside the sentence’s stated limit.
THE MEANING
A limit in what can happen does not erase what still happens: a few sick people are healed. Here, power is intimate and bodily, arriving through hands laid on the sick.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a limit means total absence: even where no mighty work is possible, the verse still names actual healings.
THE ROOT
ἐδύνατο
edynato
GROWS FROM
δυναμ-
dynam-
capacity, ability, power
“could / mighty work” in this verse is edynato. The verb for “could” and the noun for “mighty work” share this Greek stem, giving capacity and power one word-family. That shared seed sharpens the tension: the sentence names an inability, then ends with healing as the exception that still happens.
ALSO GROWS
dynamai: to be able, have power
δύναμαι
This is the verb family behind “could”; the verse’s language of capacity grows from the same seed as its language of power.
dynatos: able, powerful
δυνατός
This branch carries both ability and power, echoing the verse’s tension between what is possible and what happens.
ἐθεράπευσεν
etherapeusen
GROWS FROM
θεραπευ-
therapeu-
attend to, care for, treat; heal
“healed” in this verse is etherapeusen. The Greek verb belongs to a word-family that also names care and attending. That gives the healing a close, bodily texture: power meets the sick through hands laid on them.
ALSO GROWS
therapeia: care, treatment, healing
θεραπεία
This related noun brings the care dimension of the healing into view alongside the result.
therapōn: attendant, servant
θεράπων
This branch names one who attends or serves, emphasizing the tending contained in the verb’s word-family.
THE PATTERN
Restoration becomes visible in concrete encounters with particular bodies.
He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.THE THREAD
Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.Mark and Luke use the same Greek verb, θεραπεύω (therapeuō, to attend to, care for, or heal), for what KJV renders “healed.” Luke’s “every one” brings the individual care in this verse into focus: hands meet each sick body.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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