What Does Mark 1:24 Mean?
Saying, "Leave us be. What is there between us and you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to make us perish? I know who you are, the Set-Apart One of God."
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
Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.THE KEY
The resisting voice calls the Holy One’s nearness destruction even as it recognizes who stands before it.
THE MEANING
When the holy comes near, the part that clings to separation can experience that nearness as a threat. Recognition can be exact and still be filled with dread: the voice knows who Jesus is, yet pleads for distance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Naming the truth does not mean welcoming it; this voice recognizes Jesus accurately while resisting his presence.
THE ROOT
ἀπολέσαι
apolesai
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
To lose or perish; to destroy, bring to ruin.
“make us perish” in this verse is apolesai. The word family holds both causing destruction and being lost or perishing. The voice fears being brought to ruin by the very one it recognizes as holy.
ALSO GROWS
apōleia: loss, ruin, destruction
ἀπώλεια
This noun from the same word family makes the threatened end sound like loss and ruin as well as destruction.
apolōlos: lost, perished
ἀπολωλός
This form describes the one who is lost or has perished, echoing the fate the speaker fears.
ὁ ἅγιος
ho hagios
GROWS FROM
ἁγ-
Set apart, consecrated.
“Set-Apart One of God” in this verse is ho hagios. The title names Jesus as set apart to God, not merely as someone with unusual power. That identity is recognized by a voice that wants him gone.
ALSO GROWS
hagiazō: set apart, consecrate
ἁγιάζω
The verb carries the same setting-apart quality named in the title.
hagiasmos: setting apart, consecration
ἁγιασμός
This related noun shows the wider family of language around being set apart to God.
οἶδά
oida
GROWS FROM
εἰδ-
See, perceive.
“I know who you are” in this verse is oida. The verb translated “know” belongs to the Greek see-and-perceive family and can carry the sense of having seen and recognizing. The voice perceives Jesus clearly, but that recognition does not make it welcome his presence.
ALSO GROWS
eidon: I saw
εἶδον
This form makes visible the seeing behind the family’s language of knowing.
eidos: form, appearance
εἶδος
This related noun names what is seen or perceived, linking recognition to perception.
THE PATTERN
God’s authority is recognized even by forces that resist its presence.
And the unclean breaths, when they saw him, fell down before him and cried out, saying, You are the Son of God.You trust that there is one God; you do well. The demons also trust, and shudder.And the evil breath answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?THE THREAD
Saying, Leave us be. What is between us and you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to make us perish? I know who you are, the Set-Apart One of God.Luke uses the same Greek verb, ἀπολέσαι, for “destroy,” keeping the threatened loss or perishing joined to the speaker’s fear. The matching words let you hear the question as more than fear of harm: the voice recognizes the Holy One and fears what his presence means for it.
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