What Does Mark 11:5 Mean?
And some of those standing there said to them, What are you doing, untying the colt?
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 certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt?THE KEY
The question falls on the loosening, because release begins before the journey is visible.
THE MEANING
The verse holds release in the present: the colt is being untied, and those standing nearby ask what is happening. The loosening is already underway while its purpose remains just beyond their question.
THE ROOT
λύοντες
luontes
GROWS FROM
λύω (lyō), stem λυ- (ly-)
To loosen, untie, unbind, or release.
“untying” in this verse is luontes. This is an active loosening: someone is undoing the tie. The same Greek root can describe unbinding a person or dismantling something built, revealing release as the undoing of a constraint; here, that loosening makes movement possible.
ALSO GROWS
apolyō: Release or dismiss.
ἀπολύω
The same verb root appears with a prefix in a word for releasing someone, extending the colt’s untying into the wider idea of letting go.
katalyō: Dismantle or destroy.
καταλύω
This compound uses the same root for loosening something built apart, showing that the root’s central movement is undoing what holds together.
THE PATTERN
Release takes visible form as the loosening of what has kept someone or something bound.
Is this not the fast I have chosen, to open the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the crushed away free, and to tear away every yoke?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?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.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 verb, λύω (lyō), from the root λυ- (ly-, to loosen or unbind). In Mark the colt is being untied; in John the grave wrappings are loosened so Lazarus can go free, carrying the same root from unbinding into movement.
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