What Does Mark 14:60 Mean?
The high priest stood up in the middle and asked Jesus, saying, Do you answer nothing? What is it that these testify against you?
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 high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?THE KEY
The Greek root behind “witness” also gives us “martyr”: here, testimony is spoken with life at stake.
THE MEANING
When accusations gather around you, the demand for an answer can become another force bearing down. The questioner’s insistence does not, by itself, establish the charge.
THE ROOT
καταμαρτυροῦσιν
katamartyrousin
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
martyr-
Bear witness or testify; the prefix κατα- (kata-, against) gives the verb its accusatory direction here.
“testify against you” in this verse is katamartyrousin. The verb means “testify against,” placing the witnesses’ words at the center of the questioning. The same Greek word-family gives us μάρτυς (martys), “witness,” the source of “martyr”, a word that carries testimony toward the possibility of death.
ALSO GROWS
martys: Witness; one who bears testimony.
μάρτυς
This noun is the source of “martyr,” preserving the link between testimony and the cost of bearing witness.
martyria: Testimony or witness.
μαρτυρία
It names the testimony being demanded and shows that the question turns on what can be borne witness to.
THE PATTERN
A charge does not establish itself: testimony must be weighed apart from pressure to answer.
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.Witnesses of violence rise; they ask me what I have not known.Who, when he was insulted, hurled no insult back; when he suffered, he threatened not; but handed himself over to the one who judges by alignment.THE THREAD
Jesus answered him, If I have spoken badly, bear witness to what is bad. But if well, why do you beat me?“Bear witness” comes from the same Greek μαρτυρ- (martyr-) family as the testimony directed against Jesus here. The question turns the demand toward the accuser: if there is evil, let it be witnessed.
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