What Does Mark 8:3 Mean in the King James?
And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far.
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 words for “send away” and “faint” share the root λύω (lyō, “loosen”), joining dismissal to the body’s giving way.
THE MEANING
Your hunger and the distance you have traveled matter to whether you can make it home. Sent onward while fasting, you can lose strength along the road. The verse sees the journey as something borne by a body, not an idea.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Release alone is not always care: someone sent onward hungry may be too weak to finish the road.
THE ROOT
ἀπολύσω
apolýsō
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
To loosen, untie, or release.
“send them away” in this verse is apolýsō. “Send away” is ἀπολύσω (apolýsō), built on λύω (lyō, “loosen”); “faint” is ἐκλυθήσονται (eklythḗsontai), from ἐκλύω (eklýō, “loosen out; grow weary”). The shared seed joins dismissal to the body’s giving way: a person can be released from the table yet left too depleted for the road.
ALSO GROWS
apolýō: To release, dismiss, or send away.
ἀπολύω
This is the verb for sending the people home; its root links that release to the weakening named later in the verse.
eklýō: To loosen out; to grow weary or faint.
ἐκλύω
This is the verb behind “they will faint,” showing how a long road and an empty body can come undone together.
lyō: To loosen, untie, or release.
λύω
The base verb carries the shared image beneath both sending away and losing strength.
THE PATTERN
Care attends to bodily need before a person is sent back onto a difficult road.
And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.Man did eat angels’ food: he sent them meat to the full.Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for this is for your health: for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you.THE THREAD
Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.Matthew repeats the same pair: ἀπολύω (apolýō, “send away”) and ἐκλύω (eklýō, “grow faint”). Their shared root λύω (lyō, “loosen”) links dismissal to the body’s weakening when the road is long and the people are hungry.
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