What Does Mark 13:3 Mean?
And as he sat on the Mount of Olives facing the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him apart.
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 he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,THE KEY
The temple stays in view, but the disciples direct their question to Jesus.
THE MEANING
Jesus sits opposite the temple, and Peter, James, John, and Andrew ask him privately. The verse holds the visible sacred structure and a direct conversation in the same frame. The disciples’ question turns toward Jesus while the temple remains before them.
THE ROOT
κατ
kat’ idian
GROWS FROM
ἰδι-
idi-
One’s own, belonging particularly to oneself.
The phrase comes from the word family of ἴδιος, “one’s own,” marking this as a conversation set apart from the public setting. All four disciples are present, so the word distinguishes the exchange from a public address rather than describing a one-on-one conversation.
ALSO GROWS
ídios: One’s own; belonging to oneself.
ἴδιος
This is the seed behind the wording for the disciples’ private exchange.
idía: Privately; individually.
ἰδίᾳ
This adverbial form appears in the phrase that marks the setting of their question.
idiṓtēs: A private individual; a nonexpert or layperson.
ἰδιώτης
This branch retains the sense of someone in a private, nonofficial capacity, echoing the distinction between this conversation and a public address.
THE PATTERN
A moment of revelation draws a direct request from someone who stays near.
And he said, Please, show me your weight.And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.And it came to be, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he stopped, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.THE THREAD
And Jesus answered and said to him, Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left one stone upon another that will not be pulled loose.Jesus has just spoken of the temple’s dismantling; now the disciples ask him privately while sitting opposite it. Their question opens in the space between the visible building and the words spoken about its future.
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