What Does Mark 12:26 Mean?
And concerning the dead, that they are raised, have you not read in the scroll of Moses, how God spoke to him in the bramble, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
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 as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?THE KEY
The resurrection claim is hidden in one tense: God says, “I am” the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even though they are dead.
THE MEANING
God’s present “I am” keeps Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob within the relationship Jesus names. The dead are the very ones the verse says are raised. The Greek word for “rise” also means to wake or rouse, joining resurrection to awakening.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Death turns a person’s relationship with God into a finished past.
THE ROOT
ἐγείρονται
egeirontai
GROWS FROM
ἐγείρω
egeirō
to wake, rouse, or raise up
“are raised” in this verse is egeirontai. The verb translated “rise” also describes waking someone from sleep. Its range holds awakening and being raised from death together, so resurrection is pictured as life roused from what looks like its end.
ALSO GROWS
egeirousin: they wake or rouse
ἐγείρουσιν
In Mark 4:38, the disciples use this verb to wake Jesus, showing its ordinary sense of awakening.
ēgerthē: he was raised
ἠγέρθη
In Mark 16:6, this form describes Jesus being raised, showing the same verb reaching beyond waking from sleep to resurrection.
יִצְחָק
Yitzḥaq
GROWS FROM
צחק
tz-ḥ-q
to laugh
Isaac’s name carries the sound and sense of laughter. This name, born from laughter, remains within God’s present self-identification even as Jesus speaks about the dead being raised.
ALSO GROWS
tseḥoq: laughter
צְחוֹק
In Genesis 21:6, Sarah says God has made laughter for her; the name Isaac holds that same root.
tzāḥaq: laughed
צָחַק
In Genesis 18:12, Sarah laughs, another form of the root carried in Isaac’s name.
THE PATTERN
God’s life is shown in raising people from death, where death appears to close the story.
The LORD kills, and makes alive; he brings down to the grave, and brings up.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.Jesus said to her, I am the rising, and the life. Whoever leans their weight into me, even if they die, will live.THE THREAD
Moreover he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was in awe to look upon God.These are the words Jesus cites: God identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their present place in God’s own self-identification is the foundation of Jesus’ claim that the dead rise.
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