What Does Mark 12:23 Mean?
In the rising, therefore, when they stand up, whose wife will she be of them? For all seven had her as wife.
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
In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.THE KEY
English separates “resurrection” from “rise,” while Greek makes them echoes of standing up, turning the question into whether present marriage claims still stand in risen life.
THE MEANING
The seven men’s marriage claims press against the idea of resurrection: which bond defines the woman when they rise? The question reveals how readily the reader carries the present order of marriage into the life named as resurrection.
THE ROOT
ἀναστάσει
anastasei
GROWS FROM
ἵστημι
histēmi
to stand; to set upright
The noun ἀνάστασις (anastasis, “rising; resurrection”) and the verb ἀνίστημι (anistēmi, “stand up; rise”) share the standing stem ἵστημι (histēmi, “stand”). That makes “resurrection” and “rise” a root echo: the question asks whether the present marriage claim still stands when the dead stand again.
ALSO GROWS
anistēmi: to stand up; to rise
ἀνίστημι
The verse’s verb ἀναστῶσιν (anastōsin, “they rise”) belongs to this same word family, though English gives the noun and verb different sounds.
stasis: standing; position
στάσις
This related noun makes the standing image visible inside “resurrection”: the word carries the sense of rising to stand.
THE PATTERN
Rising from death brings a life whose form exceeds the conditions of mortal life.
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground shall awake, some to the life of the ages, and some to exposure and contempt for the ages.For when they stand up from the dead, they neither marry nor are given away in marriage, but are like the messengers in the heavens.So also is the rising of the dead. It is sown in decay; it is awakened in what does not decay.THE THREAD
For when they stand up from the dead, they neither marry nor are given away in marriage, but are like the messengers in the heavens.This verse answers the question by naming a changed order: those who rise neither marry nor are given in marriage. The marriage categories raised in the question do not govern resurrection life in the same way.
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