What Does Mark 7:21 Mean in the King James?
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
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
This verse places harmful reasoning and visible acts in the same stream issuing from the heart.
THE MEANING
Destructive thoughts and actions emerge from within the human heart. The verse names thought and act together as things that proceed from the inner life. Its words speak to the reader’s interior now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that harm originates only in outside pressures or visible behavior; the verse places its source within the heart.
THE ROOT
διαλογισμοὶ πονηροί
dialogismoi ponēroi
GROWS FROM
λογίζομαι (logizomai), λογ- (log-)
To reckon, consider, or reason.
“evil thoughts” in this verse is dialogismoi ponēroi. The word translated “thoughts” can name reasonings or deliberations. By placing those inner workings in the same list as outward acts, the verse locates harm in the inward stream from which both proceed.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: To reckon, consider, or reason.
λογίζομαι
It gives the thought-word its sense of active consideration, rather than a passing mental image alone.
dialogizomai: To reason through, deliberate, or consider.
διαλογίζομαι
This related verb makes visible the inward working of thought included in the verse’s “evil thoughts.”
καρδίας
kardias
GROWS FROM
καρδία (kardia), καρδ- (kard-)
Heart; the inner center of thought, desire, and choice.
Kardia names the inner center from which thought and action arise, not only the seat of emotion. Its compounds join the heart with knowing and with hardness, keeping perception and disposition within one inner life.
ALSO GROWS
kardiognōstēs: One who knows hearts.
καρδιογνώστης
This compound shows the heart as a place of knowing, as well as feeling.
sklērokardia: Hardness of heart.
σκληροκαρδία
This compound shows the heart as an inward disposition that shapes how a person responds.
THE PATTERN
What becomes visible in conduct issues from the inward heart.
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.THE THREAD
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:Matthew repeats the same Greek words for “heart,” “proceed,” and “evil thoughts,” making the shared inner source unmistakable. Its longer list extends Mark’s picture of what issues from within.
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