What Does Mark 1:23 Mean?
And in their synagogue there was a man with an unclean breath, and he cried out,
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,THE KEY
The word translated “spirit” is pneuma, breath, wind, spirit, so the unseen presence is named as movement and made audible in the man’s cry.
THE MEANING
An unclean spirit is present among the gathered people, and a man cries out. The hidden presence becomes impossible to keep abstract when it enters their shared hearing. Pneuma (πνεῦμα, breath, wind, spirit) keeps the unseen mover joined to what can be heard.
THE ROOT
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνε-/πνο- (from πνέω, pneō)
To breathe or blow; breath or moving air.
The word rendered “spirit” belongs to the same Greek word family as breath and wind. The verse names an unseen movement that becomes perceptible through the cry.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To breathe or blow.
πνέω
The verb names the movement behind pneuma: air in motion, felt by what it does.
pnoē: Breath or blowing.
πνοή
This related noun makes the breath and wind meanings audible within the same word family.
ἀκαθάρτῳ
akathartō
GROWS FROM
καθαρ-
kathar-
Clean or pure.
“unclean breath” in this verse is akathartō. The Greek word ἀκάθαρτος (akathartos, unclean) is formed with a- before καθαρ- (kathar-, clean): the word keeps its relation to what is clean within it. The same family includes cleansing, so the description carries the contrast between uncleanness and being cleansed.
ALSO GROWS
katharos: Clean or pure.
καθαρός
This is the positive form whose root remains inside the word translated “unclean.”
katharizō: To cleanse or make clean.
καθαρίζω
This verb shows the same root in motion, naming cleansing as the counterpart to the condition described here.
THE PATTERN
What moves unseen becomes perceptible through the effect it produces.
The breath blows where it wills, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so is everyone who is born of breath.My heart is hot within me, and while I mutter the fire burns. Then I speak with my tongue.A good human brings out good from the good treasure of the heart, and an evil human brings out evil from the evil treasure of the heart, for from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.THE THREAD
The breath blows where it wills, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so is everyone who is born of breath.John 3:8 uses πνεῦμα (pneuma, breath, wind, spirit) for both “wind” and “Spirit,” the same word rendered “spirit” here. The shared word holds unseen movement and its perceptible effects together.
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