What Does Mark 11:2 Mean?
And he said to them, Go into the village facing you, and straightway as you enter it, you will find a colt bound, on which no one has yet sat. Untie him and lead him.
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 saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and bring him.THE KEY
The Greek command translated “loose” is the same command Jesus gives at Lazarus’s tomb: release comes before the next movement.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks through a sequence: the colt is tied, then the command names its release and its bringing. Its restraint is not presented as its final condition; release opens the movement that follows.
THE ROOT
λύσατε
lysate
GROWS FROM
λύω
luō: to loosen, release, or unbind
“untie” in this verse is lysate. The Greek word belongs to the same family as ἀπολύω, to release or dismiss, and λύτρον, a ransom, the price of release. Its center is loosening what holds, so the colt’s release is a change of condition before it is brought forward.
ALSO GROWS
apolyō: to release or dismiss
ἀπολύω
It carries the same movement of setting someone free from what holds them.
lytron: ransom; a price paid for release
λύτρον
It shows how the root’s idea of loosening extends to the cost of freeing someone.
δεδεμένον
dedemenon
GROWS FROM
δέω
deō: to bind or tie
“bound” in this verse is dedemenon. The word translated “tied” comes from δέω, bind; its word family includes δεσμός, a bond, and δέσμιος, a prisoner. The sentence names the restraint directly, then answers it with the command to release.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: a bond or chain
δεσμός
It makes explicit the kind of restraint the colt is under.
desmios: a bound person; a prisoner
δέσμιος
It shows the same binding language applied to a person held in restraint.
THE PATTERN
In Scripture, release is the threshold that turns binding into movement.
The one who had died came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped his face. Jesus said to them, Untie him, and let him go.And this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom the Adversary has bound, look, these eighteen years, ought she not to be unbound from this binding on the sabbath day?Who makes judgment for the pressed, who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD loosens the bound.THE THREAD
The one who had died came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped his face. Jesus said to them, Untie him, and let him go.Mark and John use the same Greek command, λύσατε, from λύω. In Mark, the colt is loosed before it is brought; at Lazarus’s tomb, the man is loosed before he goes.
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