What Does Mark 13:5 Mean?
And Jesus answered them and began to say, Watch, lest anyone lead you off the path.
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 Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:THE KEY
The Greek word behind “deceive” pictures being led off course, so the danger is not only a false claim but a voice that redirects your path.
THE MEANING
This verse meets the reader where a confident voice can redirect attention before its claim is recognized as false. It presents deception as something another person can do to you, so error is not always a private failure of judgment. Jesus’ warning names the danger wherever a voice competes to define what is true.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that deception is only a private mistake: the verse says another person can actively lead you astray.
THE ROOT
πλανήσῃ
planēsē
GROWS FROM
πλαν
To wander or stray; to lead someone astray.
“lead you off the path” in this verse is planēsē. The verb frames deception as movement away from a path, with another person capable of setting that movement in motion. English “deceive” can sound like a wrong idea accepted in the mind, while the Greek also carries the image of being led astray.
ALSO GROWS
planē: Wandering, error, or delusion.
πλάνη
This noun shows deception as a course that has drifted from what is true.
planos: A wanderer or deceiver.
πλάνος
The deceiver is named through the same image: one who strays or leads others astray.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yēšūaʿ
GROWS FROM
ישע
To deliver, bring out of danger, or make spacious.
The name carries deliverance as his nature, not merely an action he performs. Being led astray narrows a person’s way, while the nature carried in Jesus’ name is deliverance toward spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuʿah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun shares the name’s root and makes its deliverance meaning explicit.
mōšîaʿ: One who delivers; a deliverer.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This word from the same root links the name to the one who brings people out.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents deception as misdirection, whether it comes through another voice or through the self, and places discernment in examining what is heard.
The open one leans his weight on every word, but the shrewd one discerns his step.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.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.THE THREAD
And there was much murmuring about him among the crowd. Some said, He is good; others said, No, he leads the crowd off the path.Mark uses the πλαν- word family for being led astray; John uses the same verb when some say Jesus “deceiveth the people.” The shared root shows that the label of deception can itself enter a dispute over who is leading people astray.
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