What Does Mark 10:51 Mean?
Jesus answered and said to him, What do you want me to do for you? The blind man said to him, My teacher, that I might look up again.
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 Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.THE KEY
Before restoring sight, Jesus gives the blind man room to name the exact thing he wants restored.
THE MEANING
The question meets you without scripting your answer. The request names sight itself: a return to seeing. The verse makes room for a need to be spoken as specifically as it is felt.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a need must be inferred for you: the question gives it a voice and makes the request specific.
THE ROOT
ἀναβλέψω
anablepsō
GROWS FROM
βλεπ-
blep-
see, look
“look up again” in this verse is anablepsō. “Receive my sight” is one Greek verb, ἀναβλέψω (anablepsō, see again or recover sight), formed with ἀνά (ana, up or again) and βλέπω (blepō, see or look). Its seed βλεπ- (blep-, see or look) also grows into ἐμβλέπω (emblepō, look at or gaze upon): the same family speaks of sight returned and sight directed.
ALSO GROWS
blepō: see, look
βλέπω
This is the simple verb within ἀναβλέψω; the phrase translated “receive my sight” describes a return to seeing.
emblepō: look at, gaze upon
ἐμβλέπω
This compound keeps the same βλεπ- seed but directs seeing toward someone, showing how the family can describe both restored vision and focused looking.
THE PATTERN
Sight is restored when the barrier to seeing is removed, making what was unseen visible.
And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of waters, and went and filled the skin with waters, and gave the boy drink.And Elisha prayed and said, LORD, I pray you, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and look, the mountain was filled with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.THE THREAD
Then he laid his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up; and he was set back in place, and saw everyone in clear light.Mark 8:25 uses the same βλεπ- (blep-, see or look) family in διέβλεψεν (dieblepsen, saw clearly) and ἐνέβλεπεν (eneblepen, was seeing or looking at). There, sight returns in stages and becomes clear; here, ἀναβλέψω names the request for sight itself.
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