What Does Mark 11:1 Mean?
And when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, he sent out two of his disciples.
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 they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples,THE KEY
Jerusalem carries the name of wholeness, and Jesus approaches it by sending two disciples ahead before he enters.
THE MEANING
Your approach to wholeness is already in motion: the next stretch can begin before you arrive. As Jesus nears the city, two learners are sent ahead; the way opens through a sending.
THE ROOT
ἀποστέλλει
apostellei
GROWS FROM
στέλλω (stellō), with ἀπό (apo, away)
To send or dispatch; the compound means to send away or forth.
“sent out” in this verse is apostellei. The word emphasizes movement forward: before Jesus enters the city, he sends two learners ahead. The same word family names both the act of sending and the sent one.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: A sent one, messenger
ἀπόστολος
The disciples here are sent ahead, embodying the movement named by this word.
apostolē: A sending, commission
ἀποστολή
The verse presents their going as a purposeful sending that carries the next part of the journey forward.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries the sound of shalom, wholeness, with a dual ending: the destination holds twofold wholeness. The verse places the sending on the approach to that named wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
The city’s name carries the quality toward which the journey moves.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the destination’s name a quality of being, not only a place on a map.
THE PATTERN
The way into what lies ahead opens when someone is sent before the arrival.
The LORD, the God of the heavens, who took me from my father's house, and from the land of my birth, who spoke to me, and swore to me, saying, To your seed will I give this land; he shall send his messenger before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there.Look, I send a messenger before you to guard you in the way and to bring you to the place I have established.And he sent out two of his disciples and said to them, Go into the city, and a man carrying a clay jar of water will meet you. Follow him.THE THREAD
Then Jesus said to them again, Wholeness be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.John uses the same sending word when Jesus sends his followers as the Father sent him. The word that moves two disciples ahead toward Jerusalem also describes sending as the shape of their connection with Jesus.
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