What Does Mark 11:18 Mean?
And the scribes and the chief priests heard it, and they sought how they might make him perish, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was struck out of its place by his teaching.
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 scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.THE KEY
What makes Jesus dangerous to the leaders is the crowd’s astonishment at his teaching, and their fear turns that response into a search for his ruin.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the moment when teaching moves people so deeply that those holding authority experience it as a threat. The leaders fear Jesus because the crowd is astonished by his teaching, and they search for a way to destroy him. The passage holds both the public wonder and the lethal intent in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that public wonder is always harmless to those who hold authority: here, the leaders’ fear becomes a plot against the teacher whose words move the crowd.
THE ROOT
ἀπολέσωσιν
apolēsōsin
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
apollymi
To perish, be lost, or bring to ruin.
“make him perish” in this verse is apolēsōsin. The verb behind “destroy” belongs to the same word family used for what is lost or perishes. That makes the leaders’ intent stark: they seek Jesus’ ruin, while the same root elsewhere names what Jesus comes to seek.
ALSO GROWS
apollymi: To perish, be lost, or bring to ruin.
ἀπόλλυμι
This verb family holds both perishing and causing ruin, giving “destroy him” the force of seeking his end.
apolōlos: Lost, or having perished.
ἀπολωλός
This is the word behind “that which was lost” in Luke 19:10, where Jesus seeks what is lost.
ἐξεπλήσσετο
ekseplēsseto
GROWS FROM
πλήσσω
plēssō
To strike; in the compound, to strike out or astound.
“struck out of its place” in this verse is ekseplēsseto. The crowd’s astonishment is expressed with a verb built on the idea of striking. His teaching lands with such force that the people are moved, and that response is precisely what the leaders fear.
ALSO GROWS
plēssō: To strike or smite.
πλήσσω
This is the verbal base of the word for astonishment, carrying an image of impact into the crowd’s reaction.
ekplēssō: To amaze or astonish.
ἐκπλήσσω
This is the verb family used for the crowd’s response to Jesus’ teaching; their amazement triggers the leaders’ fear.
THE PATTERN
When teaching takes hold among the people, established authority can experience the response as a threat and move against its source.
And it was, when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, "You shall surely die."And it came to pass, when Jesus finished these words, that the crowds were struck out of themselves at his teaching. For he taught them as one who holds authority, and not as their letter-writers.Then the chief priests and the separated ones gathered together in council, and said, What are we doing? For this man does many signs. If we let him go on like this, all will lean their weight into him, and the Romans will come and lift away both our place and our nation.THE THREAD
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to deliver that which had lost its way.The word translated “lost” belongs to the same Greek verb family as Mark’s “destroy”: ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi), meaning to perish, be lost, or bring to ruin. Mark shows leaders seeking Jesus’ ruin; Luke says the Son of Man comes to seek and deliver what is lost, turning the shared root into a striking counter-movement.
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