What Does Mark 14:17 Mean?
And when evening had come, he came with the twelve.
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 in the evening he cometh with the twelve.THE KEY
The Greek verb makes this an arrival into shared presence: Jesus comes with the twelve as evening begins.
THE MEANING
You meet this moment as evening comes on: Jesus arrives accompanied, with the twelve beside him. The verse holds the gathering in a single movement, placing you within a scene of shared presence.
THE ROOT
ἔρχεται
erchetai
GROWS FROM
ἔρχομαι
erchomai
to come, go, or arrive
English “cometh” sounds like a simple arrival, while ἔρχομαι can mean come or go depending on the point of view. Here, the present form places Jesus arriving into the evening scene; related compounds show the verb’s broader sense of movement across a threshold.
ALSO GROWS
eiserchomai: enter, come in
εἰσέρχομαι
Adding “in” makes explicit the movement into a place that is already present in the verse’s arrival.
exerchomai: go out, depart
ἐξέρχομαι
Adding “out” shows that this word family can describe passage across a boundary in either direction.
THE PATTERN
Presence takes shape as coming among people rather than remaining distant.
Shout and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for look, I am coming, and I will pitch my tent in the midst of you, says the LORD.For where two or three are gathered together in my nature, there I am in the midst of them.Then on that same evening, the first day of the week, when the doors were locked where the disciples had gathered together for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, Wholeness be with you.THE THREAD
Then on that same evening, the first day of the week, when the doors were locked where the disciples had gathered together for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, Wholeness be with you.“Came” in John and “cometh” here share the Greek verb ἔρχομαι. Both verses place Jesus arriving in the evening among a gathered group, so Mark’s brief line opens onto the same movement into shared presence.
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