What Does Mark 1:26 Mean?
And the unclean breath, having convulsed him, cried out with a loud voice, and came out of him.
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 when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.THE KEY
The word rendered “spirit” is pneuma, breath; the verse holds that unseen presence together with the body’s convulsion and cry as it leaves.
THE MEANING
A disturbing presence can act violently and still remain distinct from the person it grips. The unclean pneuma convulses him, cries out, and comes out of him; release takes visible form. The violence of the exit does not erase the person who remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A violent disturbance is the person’s whole identity, so nothing distinct can leave.
THE ROOT
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνέω
pneō
To breathe or blow; this word family holds breath and moving air together.
“unclean breath” in this verse is pneuma. English separates “spirit,” “wind,” and “breath,” while Greek keeps them within the pneuma word family. Here that shared word makes the unseen presence bodily legible in the man’s convulsion and cry, while “out of him” distinguishes the man from what leaves.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To breathe, to blow
πνέω
The verb beneath pneuma joins breath with windlike movement.
pnoē: Breath; a blowing
πνοή
This related noun keeps breath and moving air in the same word family.
σπαράξαν
sparaxan
GROWS FROM
σπαράσσω
sparassō
To tear, rend, or convulse.
“having convulsed him” in this verse is sparaxan. The verb carries the force of a convulsive wrenching, not a mild disturbance. Its recurrence in other accounts makes the bodily violence part of the scene’s repeated pattern.
ALSO GROWS
sparassei: It tears or convulses
σπαράσσει
Mark 9:20 uses this form for the spirit’s violent action, echoing the same force.
synesparaxen: It tore or convulsed violently
συνεσπάραξεν
Luke 9:42 uses this related form for the demon’s wrenching hold on the boy.
THE PATTERN
A spirit’s distressing hold is shown through its effects, and its ending is marked by departure.
And it came to pass, when the harmful breath from God was upon Saul, that David took the harp and played with his hand, and Saul breathed freely again, and was well, and the harmful breath turned aside from him.And the breath cried out and convulsed him violently, and came out of him, and he was as one dead, so that many said, He has died.She did this for many days. But Paul, worn through with pain, turned and said to the breath, I command you in the nature of Jesus the Anointed One, to come out of her. And it came out that very hour.THE THREAD
And the breath cried out and convulsed him violently, and came out of him, and he was as one dead, so that many said, He has died.Mark 9:26 repeats the same verb family: the spirit cries, convulses the boy, and comes out. That shared root keeps the violence of the departure visible while the verse still distinguishes the person from what leaves him.
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