What Does Mark 14:57 Mean?
Some rose and bore false testimony against him, saying,
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 there arose certain, and bare false witness against him, saying,THE KEY
A lie against him rises wearing testimony’s clothing; the posture of a witness cannot make a false claim true.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you whenever accusation takes the shape of evidence: people stand and testify against him, yet their testimony is false. The number or confidence of those speaking does not turn a false claim into truth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a charge becomes true when enough people repeat it or present it as testimony.
THE ROOT
ἐψευδομαρτύρουν
epseudomartýroun
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
martyr-
witness; testify
“bore false testimony” in this verse is epseudomartýroun. The Greek verb combines ψευδής (pseudēs, “false”) with μαρτυρέω (martyreō, “to bear witness”). The falsehood does not arrive as a bare insult: it takes the form of testimony, turning the act of witnessing into a vehicle for accusation.
ALSO GROWS
mártys: A witness, one who attests to something.
μάρτυς
The accusation borrows the standing of a witness, though the claim itself is false.
martyría: Testimony; the witness or evidence given.
μαρτυρία
Mark’s next verse uses this same word for the testimony that fails to agree, exposing the gap between testimony’s form and its truth.
martyreō: To bear witness or give testimony.
μαρτυρέω
This is the witness-bearing action named by the verse’s verb, with falsehood attached to it.
THE PATTERN
False accusation gains public form by borrowing the voice and posture of testimony.
You shall not answer against your neighbor as a witness of falsehood.A false witness does not come away clear, and the one who breathes out lies does not slip free.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
You shall not answer against your neighbor as a witness of falsehood.Mark’s verb ἐψευδομαρτύρουν (epseudomartýroun, “they bore false witness”) belongs to the same Greek word family as the Septuagint’s wording for “bear false witness” in this command. Exodus names the corruption; Mark shows that witness taking shape against him.
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