What Does Mark 12:25 Mean?
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.
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
For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.THE KEY
The verse closes both sides of marriage, the one who marries and the one given, because resurrection opens a life no longer organized by that bond.
THE MEANING
The verse presents risen life as a different order, where marriage no longer defines how people are joined or socially placed. The risen are like the heavenly messengers in this respect: neither marrying nor being given in marriage marks their life. The verse speaks now by loosening the assumption that the relationships organizing this age define every form of life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that marriage permanently defines human belonging: in resurrection, neither marrying nor being given in marriage sets a person’s place.
THE ROOT
γαμοῦσιν
gamousin
GROWS FROM
γαμ-
gam-
The Greek word family for marrying and the marriage relation.
“marry / are given in marriage” in this verse is gamousin. Both verbs grow from the same marriage-family: one names marrying, the other being given in marriage. The verse names both directions, then says neither organizes risen life.
ALSO GROWS
gámos: marriage; wedding
γάμος
Names the shared institution beneath both forms in the verse.
gaméō: to marry
γαμέω
The verb behind “marry,” naming one side of the paired forms.
gamízō: to give in marriage; marry off
γαμίζω
The verb behind “are given in marriage,” naming the other side of the pair.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents life’s arrangements as belonging to an order that can pass, while resurrection opens a changed order.
To everything there is an appointed time, and a time for every delight under the heavens.And those who use this world as those who do not use it up, for the shape of this world is passing by.And God wipes away every tear from their eyes, and there is no more death, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the first things have gone away.THE THREAD
But those who are weighed worthy to reach that age, and the rising from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage.Luke repeats the same paired marriage verbs and names the setting more explicitly as “that world” and “the resurrection from the dead.” Their shared γαμ- (gam-, marriage) family shows that both marrying and being given in marriage cease to organize risen life.
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