What Does Mark 11:30 Mean?
The immersion of John, was it from heaven, or from humankind? Answer me.
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
The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me.THE KEY
The Greek repeats the same word for “from heaven” and “of men,” making the hidden question the baptism’s source.
THE MEANING
This question holds John’s immersion at a fork between two origins: heaven and human beings. Its repeated Greek source-word keeps both choices under the same question: where does this come from? The same question meets the reader wherever an act carries authority.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A religious name by itself proves that its authority comes from God.
THE ROOT
ἐξ
ex
GROWS FROM
ἐκ
ek
Out of; from a source or origin.
“from / of” in this verse is ex. The Greek uses the same ἐξ before both “heaven” and “men,” though the KJV renders it “from” and “of.” Both alternatives are framed as possible origins of John’s immersion.
ALSO GROWS
ekballō: Cast out; drive out.
ἐκβάλλω
The compound uses ἐκ (ek), “out of,” for movement away from a place; here the standalone word marks the proposed source.
ekpiptō: Fall out; fall away.
ἐκπίπτω
This compound also carries the sense of movement out from, echoing the source question in the verse.
βάπτισμα
baptisma
GROWS FROM
βαπτίζω
baptizō
Immerse.
The Greek family keeps the action of immersion audible beneath the familiar name of the rite. Jesus asks where John’s immersion comes from, bringing its source into view.
ALSO GROWS
baptizō: Immerse.
βαπτίζω
This verb names the action behind the noun used for John’s baptism.
baptismos: Washing; immersion.
βαπτισμός
This related noun keeps the word-family’s concrete image of immersion present.
THE PATTERN
A claim’s source reveals what kind of authority it carries.
John answered and said, "A person can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from the heavens."This wisdom does not come down from above, but is of the ground, of the living soul, and demon-like.But if it is of God, you cannot undo them, lest perhaps you be found even fighting against God.THE THREAD
If you were out of the world, it would love its own. But because you are not out of it, but I picked you out of it, therefore the world hates you.Mark uses ἐξ (ex, “from/out of”) for both proposed sources: heaven and human beings. John 15:19 uses that same Greek word in “of the world” and “out of the world,” joining origin and the place one comes out from.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us