What Does Mark 13:21 Mean?
And then if anyone says to you, Look, here is the Anointed One, or, Look, there he is, do not lean your weight on him.
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 then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not:THE KEY
A location can be pointed out, but a pointer alone cannot authenticate the anointed one.
THE MEANING
A voice can point to a place and claim that the anointed one is there. This verse says the claim itself is not proof, and trust is not owed just because someone says “here” or “there.” The warning keeps identity from being reduced to a location someone advertises.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a confident claim to have located the Christ proves the claim is true.
THE ROOT
Χριστός
Christos
GROWS FROM
χρίω
to anoint
Christos means “the anointed one” and comes from chriō, “to anoint.” The verse sets that named identity beside a speaker’s claim about where he is: pointing to a place does not, by itself, establish the nature being claimed.
ALSO GROWS
chrisma: anointing
χρῖσμα
This related word keeps the title connected to anointing, rather than making it a personal name or a location.
Christos: anointed one
χριστός
The title names what is being claimed; the verse warns that repeating the title does not make a claimant trustworthy.
πιστεύσητε
pisteusēte
GROWS FROM
πιστ-
trust; be firm or reliable
“do not lean your weight on him” in this verse is pisteusēte. The Greek word for “believe” belongs to the same word family as pistis, “trust,” and pistos, “firm, reliable.” The warning concerns where trust is placed: a claim about the anointed one does not become reliable simply because it is spoken with certainty.
ALSO GROWS
pistis: trust
πίστις
This related noun brings out the trust the verse says not to place in the claimant.
pistos: firm, reliable
πιστός
The family ties trust to reliability, which the speaker’s assertion alone cannot establish.
THE PATTERN
A claim to divine authority does not become trustworthy merely because a speaker supplies a sign, location, or spiritual label.
You shall not hear and respond to the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your living soul.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.These were of nobler birth than those in Thessalonica, who received the word with all eagerness of heart, and sifted the writings daily, whether these things held so.THE THREAD
For false anointed ones and false prophets will rise, and will show signs and wonders, to lead astray, if it were possible, even the picked-out ones.The same word, Christos, appears in “false Christs”: the title is being claimed, but the claim does not prove itself true. This verse adds that signs and wonders can accompany the deception, so neither a location nor spectacle authenticates the anointed one.
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