What Does Mark 14:22 Mean?
And as they ate, Jesus took hold of bread, spoke a good word over it, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, Take hold of it, this is my body.
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 they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.THE KEY
The bread’s breaking is not the opposite of its gift; it is how the body is shared.
THE MEANING
You are addressed in the moment of receiving: “Take, eat.” The body is named in bread that is blessed, broken, and given into the hands of others. The verse holds blessing and brokenness together within the act of giving.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That what is sacred must remain whole and untouched. Here the bread is blessed as it is broken and given.
THE ROOT
ἔκλασεν
eklasen
GROWS FROM
κλάω
klaō
To break, including breaking bread.
“broke” in this verse is eklasen. The Greek verb makes the bread’s breaking a distinct action before it is given. Its word family also names the fragments that result, so the movement runs from one broken bread toward portions received by many.
ALSO GROWS
klasis: Breaking; the act of breaking.
κλάσις
The same word family names the breaking itself, the action at the center of this meal.
klasma: A fragment or broken piece.
κλάσμα
With the bread given to several people, the word for a fragment echoes how the gift reaches many hands.
ἔδωκεν
edōken
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give or grant.
“gave” in this verse is edōken. The giving leads directly into “Take, eat”: what is offered becomes something received. The Greek word family names both the act of giving and what is given, placing the body here within a movement of gift.
ALSO GROWS
dosis: A giving or gift.
δόσις
The related noun holds the act and its result together, echoing the passage’s movement from giving to receiving.
dōrea: A gift, freely given.
δωρεά
This related word brings out the gift-like character of what is placed into the hands of others.
εὐλόγησεν
eulogēsen
GROWS FROM
εὐλογέω
eulogeō
To bless or praise; literally, to speak well.
“spoke a good word over it” in this verse is eulogēsen. The Greek verb gives blessing a spoken shape before the bread is broken and passed on. The meal’s movement begins with blessing, then unfolds through breaking and giving.
ALSO GROWS
eulogia: Blessing or praise.
εὐλογία
This related noun carries the same language of blessing into the act named in the verse.
eulogētos: Blessed or worthy of praise.
εὐλογητός
This related form shows the same word family naming one who is praised or blessed.
THE PATTERN
Life-sustaining bread arrives as a gift to be received and shared.
And when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, Manna, what is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.And he commanded the crowds to recline upon the grass, and he took the five loaves and the two fish, lifted his eyes to the heavens, blessed them, broke the loaves, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the crowds.Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing in common of the blood of the Anointed One? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in common of the body of the Anointed One?THE THREAD
And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.This verse repeats the same Greek verb for breaking bread, κλάω (klaō, “to break”), and names the body as given “for you.” That phrase makes the direction of the gift explicit: the broken bread reaches the one who receives it.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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