What Does Mark 10:2 Mean?
The separated ones came to him, testing him, and asked, Is it permitted for a man to send away his wife?
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 the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him.THE KEY
Beneath a legal question about sending a wife away, the verse names the question’s purpose: to test Jesus.
THE MEANING
A question about what is lawful can be a test as well as a request for an answer. The action under scrutiny is a man sending his wife away, and the verse names the questioners’ aim: to test Jesus. The legal frame does not hide the person at the center of the question.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A question framed around what is lawful is always a sincere search for clarity; this verse shows it can be asked to entrap.
THE ROOT
ἀπολῦσαι
apolysai
GROWS FROM
λύω
luō
To loosen or untie; by extension, to release or dismiss.
“send away” in this verse is apolysai. The Greek verb lets the movement of releasing or dismissing show through the legal phrase “put away.” It keeps in view the person being sent away, inside the question about what a man may do.
ALSO GROWS
luō: Loosen, untie, release.
λύω
The simple verb carries the action beneath the compound used here: loosening or dismissing.
apolysis: Release or dismissal.
ἀπόλυσις
This related noun preserves the sense of release in the word family, making the act in the question more concrete.
THE PATTERN
Testing brings the hidden state beneath words and actions into view.
And you shall remember the whole road the LORD your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to bend you low and to test you, to perceive what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why do you test me, you masked ones?They said this while pressing him, that they might have something to speak against him. But Jesus bent low and scratched into the ground with his finger, as though he did not hear them.THE THREAD
The separated ones also came near to him, testing him, and said to him, Is it lawful for a man to send his wife away for every cause?Matthew uses the same Greek verb for “put away” and the same word for “tempting.” Its added phrase, “for every cause,” makes explicit how broadly the question asks a man may send his wife away.
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