What Does Mark 12:10 Mean?
Have you not read this writing? The stone the builders tested and threw aside has become the head of the corner.
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 have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner:THE KEY
What the builders reject after testing becomes the very stone that gives their structure its shape.
THE MEANING
The builders’ judgment does not erase the rejected stone’s place or weight: it becomes the head of the corner. The verse holds rejection and belonging together, the thing cast aside becomes the point where the whole structure meets.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that being rejected proves you have no place; the verse shows the rejected stone becoming the structure’s defining joint.
THE ROOT
ἀπεδοκίμασαν
apedokimasan
GROWS FROM
δοκιμ-
test, examine, prove, or approve
“tested and threw aside” in this verse is apedokimasan. The verb ἀποδοκιμάζω (apodokimazō, “reject after testing”) keeps examination inside the act of rejection. The same word family calls what passes examination δόκιμος (dokimos, “approved”), so the builders’ verdict is not the only measure of the stone.
ALSO GROWS
dokimazō: to test, examine, or approve
δοκιμάζω
It names the testing at the heart of the verb used for the builders’ rejection.
dokimos: approved, proven through testing
δόκιμος
It shows that this word family can name a favorable verdict on something examined.
dokimē: proof or tested character
δοκιμή
It makes the hidden examination in “rejected” visible.
λίθον
lithon
GROWS FROM
λιθ-
stone
The Hebrew אֶבֶן (even, “stone”) is read here through אָב (av, “father”) and בֵּן (ben, “son”): the stone holds father and son together. Here the stone becomes the head at the corner, the meeting point of the structure.
ALSO GROWS
lithazō: to stone, or pelt with stones
λιθάζω
It shows the stone as a concrete object that can be turned against a body, giving the rejection physical force.
lithinos: made of stone
λίθινος
It keeps the word’s material weight in view as the stone takes a defining place in the structure.
lithostrōtos: paved with stone
λιθόστρωτος
It carries the stone from a single object into the surface on which a structure stands.
γωνίας
gōnias
GROWS FROM
γων-
angle or corner, where lines meet
γωνία (gōnia, “corner”) names the point where two lines meet. With κεφαλή (kephalē, “head”), the phrase places the stone at the meeting point that gives the structure its shape.
ALSO GROWS
gōnia: an angle or corner
γωνία
It names the meeting point at the center of the verse’s building image.
akrogōniaios: cornerstone, or corner-most
ἀκρογωνιαῖος
It uses the same corner family to name a stone set at the structure’s defining corner.
THE PATTERN
The builders’ verdict cannot remove the rejected stone from the place that gives the whole structure its shape.
The stone the builders push away becomes the head of the corner.Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a weighty cornerstone, a foundation set firm. The one who leans his weight will not hurry.So honor is yours, you who lean your full weight upon him; but for those who will not yield, the stone the builders tested and set aside has become the head of the corner,THE THREAD
So honor is yours, you who lean your full weight upon him; but for those who will not yield, the stone the builders tested and set aside has become the head of the corner,This verse repeats the Greek form ἀπεδοκίμασαν (apedokimasan, “they rejected after testing”), from the same δοκιμ- root as Mark. It sets the builders’ rejection beside the stone’s being precious and made the head of the corner: two verdicts on the same stone.
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