What Does Mark 10:3 Mean?
He answered and said to them, What did Moses command you?
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 he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you?THE KEY
The appeal to Moses becomes answerable only when they name what Moses actually commands.
THE MEANING
The question meets you whenever an appeal to authority is used to settle a matter: it asks what that authority actually directs. The Greek “you” is plural, so the instruction stands openly before everyone making the claim.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Invoking Moses does not by itself prove that a practice is commanded; the question separates the authority named from the instruction actually given.
THE ROOT
ἐνετείλατο
eneteilato
GROWS FROM
ἐντέλλομαι
entellomai
to enjoin, charge, or give an instruction
“command” in this verse is eneteilato. The verb points to an instruction laid upon someone, and “you” addresses a group. The question asks them to name the actual charge they are claiming as authority.
ALSO GROWS
entolē: commandment, instruction
ἐντολή
This related noun makes the instruction itself explicit: the question asks which commandment Moses laid before them.
entellomai: to instruct, charge
ἐντέλλομαι
This verb names the act of placing an instruction on someone, matching the question’s focus on what is directed to “you.”
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
מ־שׁ־ה
m-sh-h
to draw out
Exodus 2:10 ties Moses’ name to being drawn out of the water. The name invoked as the source of instruction carries within it the image of someone drawn out.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: to draw out
מָשָׁה
This is the verb behind the name’s biblical wordplay in Exodus 2:10.
mĕšîtîhû: I drew him out
מְשִׁיתִיהוּ
This form appears in the explanation of Moses’ name and keeps the act of drawing out audible beneath it.
THE PATTERN
An appeal to authority becomes precise when its actual instruction and wording are brought into view.
And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart.And he said to him, What is written in the instruction? How do you read?What then shall we say? Is the instruction a shortcoming? May it never be. Yet I did not perceive falling short except through it, for I would not have perceived craving unless the instruction had said, "You shall not covet."THE THREAD
They said to him, Why then did Moses command to give a writing of divorce and to send her away?The same Greek command verb, ἐνετείλατο (eneteilato, “commanded”), appears in both questions. Here Jesus asks what Moses commanded; there, the speakers press the claim that Moses commanded a specific act, bringing the difference between an instruction and an appeal to authority into view.
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