What Does Mark 12:5 Mean?
And again he sent another, and him they killed, and many others, beating some, and killing some.
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 again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some.THE KEY
The repeated sending reveals a violence that consumes messengers one after another, with blows and death as recurring answers.
THE MEANING
This verse shows a present cycle: killing one messenger does not end the sending, and those who follow are exposed to blows or death. The repeated “another” makes the violence a recurring response, not an isolated act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that harm to a messenger is a single, finished event; the verse shows violence recurring against those who follow.
THE ROOT
ἀπέστειλεν
apesteilen
GROWS FROM
στέλλω (stellō), in ἀποστέλλω (apostellō)
To send or dispatch; with ἀπό, to send out or away.
The Greek verb belongs to the same word family as “messenger” and “sending.” The messenger is defined by being sent, so the violence falls on people whose role is to carry what they have been entrusted with.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: Messenger; one who is sent.
ἀπόστολος
This branch names the person by the act that opens the verse: being sent onward.
apostolē: Sending; commission.
ἀποστολή
It keeps the act of sending visible as an ongoing charge, even when the sent person is rejected.
δέροντες
derontes
GROWS FROM
δέρω
derō
To beat or flay; to strip skin.
The verb translated “beating” can also carry the harder sense of flaying. Its word family includes terms for skin and leather, keeping the harm bodily and specific: some are struck, while others are killed.
ALSO GROWS
derma: Skin; hide.
δέρμα
This related word names the body’s surface, the place the beating can reach.
dermatinos: Made of skin or leather.
δερμάτινος
This branch keeps the root’s connection to the body’s covering present even when the violence is rendered simply as “beating.”
THE PATTERN
When messengers keep being sent, rejection can become repeated bodily violence against the people who carry the message.
And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by the hand of his messengers, rising early and sending, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the burning of the LORD's anger rose against his people, until there was no healing.Therefore, look, I send you prophets, and wise ones, and writers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will whip in your gatherings and pursue from city to city.THE THREAD
Therefore, look, I send you prophets, and wise ones, and writers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will whip in your gatherings and pursue from city to city.Matthew uses the same Greek verb for sending and places it beside killing, crucifixion, and scourging. That shared wording makes Mark’s “again” and “another” visible as a recurring pattern: the sending continues while violence meets the sent.
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