What Does Mark 11:6 Mean?
And they said to them just as Jesus had commanded, and they released them.
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 they said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go.THE KEY
The command reaches its purpose when what is held is released.
THE MEANING
The disciples speak exactly as instructed, and the people let them go with the colt. The verse holds a living movement: a purpose becomes possible when another person opens what they hold and releases it.
THE ROOT
ἀφῆκαν
aphēkan
GROWS FROM
ἀφίημι
aphiēmi
Send away, release, let go, permit to depart.
“released them” in this verse is aphēkan. The verb joins ἀπό (apo, away or from) with ἵημι (hiēmi, send or let go): release sends what is held onward. This word family also carries the sense of forgiveness, so release can mean both letting someone depart and loosening what is held against someone.
ALSO GROWS
aphesis: Release, remission, forgiveness.
ἄφεσις
The same family describes forgiveness as release, extending the verse’s letting-go beyond physical departure.
aphienai: To release, let go, or leave.
ἀφιέναι
This verb form makes the permission in the verse a direct act of letting someone go.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, release moves from permission to depart to deliverance and the letting go of debts.
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told the Great House, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may dance a feast to me in the wilderness.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.And release our debts, as we also release our debtors.THE THREAD
And when you stand and pray, release, if you hold anything against anyone, so that your Father in the heavens may release your missteps.The word translated “forgive” belongs to the same Greek verb family as “let them go” in Mark 11:6. The root reveals release as one movement: letting people depart and letting go of what is held against them.
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