What Does Mark 14:55 Mean?
The chief priests and the whole council sought testimony against Jesus to put him to death, and found none.
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 the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none.THE KEY
The council seeks testimony to support a death it already wants, yet its urgency cannot make a witness appear.
THE MEANING
This verse shows a familiar mechanism: a verdict is desired first, and testimony is searched for to support it. Jesus is targeted for execution while no witness can be found; the verse leaves the violence of that aim exposed. The urgency of an accusation does not make it true.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that wanting a verdict proves a case exists.
THE ROOT
μαρτυρία
martyria
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
Witness, testimony; the Greek word family holds the witness and the act or content of bearing witness together.
The council seeks μαρτυρία, testimony, as a means to bring about Jesus’ death, but none is found. The next verse sharpens the contrast: many witnesses appear, yet their testimony does not agree.
ALSO GROWS
martys: witness
μάρτυς
The person who bears witness belongs to the same word family as the testimony being sought.
martyreō: bear witness, testify
μαρτυρέω
The verb makes clear that testimony is something people do; the verse exposes the gap between seeking it and finding it.
ἐζήτουν
ezētoun
GROWS FROM
ζητ-
Seek or search.
The Greek imperfect presents the search as underway, while its direction is already set: testimony is sought against Jesus, with his death as the aim. The verse exposes a search whose purpose is fixed before any witness is found.
ALSO GROWS
zētēsis: inquiry, question
ζήτησις
This branch frames seeking as an investigation; here the inquiry is directed toward testimony against Jesus.
ekzēteō: seek out, search diligently
ἐκζητέω
This intensified form shares the search stem and highlights how searching hard does not itself make the desired evidence appear.
THE PATTERN
Testimony carries weight only when it can stand in the open as truthful and coherent.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any crookedness, or for any falling short, in it he misses the mark; upon the mouth of two witnesses, or upon the mouth of three witnesses, the word shall stand.Jesus answered him, If I have spoken badly, bear witness to what is bad. But if well, why do you beat me?And they stood up false witnesses, who said, This man does not stop speaking words against this set-apart place and the instruction.THE THREAD
For many bore false testimony against him, but their testimonies did not match.The witness word family returns: this verse says no testimony is found, while the next presents many false witnesses whose accounts fail to agree. The number of accusations changes, but they still do not supply coherent testimony for the death being sought.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us