What Does Mark 9:26 Mean in the King James?
And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead.
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 spirit’s last violence is also the moment it leaves.
THE MEANING
The spirit’s exit is violent: it convulses the boy, and his body lies in a deathlike state. You see how release can be real before it looks like recovery; the onlookers name death from what they can see.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The final convulsion does not prove the spirit remains inside him: the verse places its exit immediately after the violence.
THE ROOT
σπαράξας
sparaxas
GROWS FROM
σπαράσσω
sparassō
To tear violently or convulse.
“rent him sore” in this verse is sparaxas. The Greek word-family carries tearing and convulsion together, so the departure is not depicted as an invisible switch-off. Here the exit passes through the same bodily violence the spirit produces.
ALSO GROWS
sparassō: To tear violently; to convulse.
σπαράσσω
The same verb names the spirit’s bodily assault earlier in Mark 9:20.
sparagmos: A tearing; a convulsion.
σπαραγμός
This related noun preserves the physical image of tearing, keeping the spirit’s exit tied to what happens in the boy’s body.
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνευ- (pneu-), from πνέω (pnéō)
Breathing or blowing; breath, wind, or spirit.
English “spirit” can sound detached from the body, but πνεῦμα (pneuma; breath, wind, spirit) belongs to a word-family of breathing and blowing. Here the spirit cries, convulses the boy, and exits, keeping the unseen force bound to the body’s movement.
ALSO GROWS
pnéō: To breathe; to blow.
πνέω
This verb shows the breath and wind sense in the same word-family as the spirit named here.
pnoē: Breath; blowing.
πνοή
This related noun makes the physical breath sense explicit beneath the English word “spirit.”
THE PATTERN
A deathlike body can be followed by life made visible again.
And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.But Peter put them all forth, and kneeled down, and prayed; and turning him to the body said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes: and when she saw Peter, she sat up.THE THREAD
And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.The verb translated “tare” belongs to the same word-family as “rent him sore” here. In verse 20 the convulsion marks the spirit’s grip; in verse 26 the same bodily violence accompanies its exit.
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