What Does Mark 12:11 Mean?
This came from the LORD, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
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
This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?THE KEY
What human judgment rejects can become, by the Lord’s doing, the cornerstone that sets the whole structure.
THE MEANING
This has come to be from the Lord, and its reversal stands before your eyes as astonishing. In the surrounding image, the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone, the piece once ruled out now gives the structure its alignment. The verse names that change as something you can see now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Rejection is the final verdict, that what is refused has no place in the structure.
THE ROOT
ἐγένετο
egeneto
GROWS FROM
γεν-/γιν- (from γίνομαι)
To come into being, become, or happen.
“came from the LORD” in this verse is egeneto. The Greek says this came to be from the Lord; “doing” can make it sound only like an action performed. The same verb-root describes the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone, so the Lord’s work is revealed in what has come to be.
ALSO GROWS
genesis: Origin, birth, or coming into being.
γένεσις
It echoes the verse’s focus on what has come to be, rather than only on an action.
genos: Kind, family, or lineage.
γένος
It shows the root’s reach into what comes forth as a distinct kind or line.
θαυμαστή
thaumastē
GROWS FROM
θαυμα-
thauma-
Wonder or astonishment; that which provokes wonder.
“marvellous” in this verse is thaumastē. The Greek word carries the force of something that arrests the eye with wonder. The verse connects the astonishing change to seeing it: the reversal is not hidden from your eyes.
ALSO GROWS
thauma: A wonder or marvel.
θαῦμα
It names the wonder that the verse says is visible.
thaumazō: To wonder or be amazed.
θαυμάζω
It shows the response stirred by what has come to be.
THE PATTERN
What human judgment rejects can become, by the Lord’s action, the foundation and alignment of the whole structure.
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
Have you not read this writing? The stone the builders tested and threw aside has become the head of the corner.“Is become” in this verse and “was the Lord’s doing” in verse 11 share the Greek root γίνομαι (ginomai), to come to be. Verse 10 shows what has come to be, the rejected stone as the corner’s head, and verse 11 recognizes that emergence as the Lord’s work.
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