What Does Mark 14:66 Mean?
While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the high priest's servant girls came.
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 Peter was beneath in the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest:THE KEY
Peter is below in the court when the high priest’s household reaches him through a maidservant.
THE MEANING
You are with Peter in the high priest’s court as a maidservant from that household approaches. The verse holds you at the instant before recognition, when one arrival brings the household into Peter’s immediate space.
THE ROOT
παιδισκῶν
paidiskōn
GROWS FROM
παιδ-
paid-
Child; attendant or servant
“servant girls” in this verse is paidiskōn. The word belongs to the παιδ- family, whose words can name both children and servants. English “maid” gives her household role, while the Greek word-family also carries the child or young attendant within that role.
ALSO GROWS
pais: Child; boy or girl; servant or attendant
παῖς
This wider word-family shows that servant and child are linked senses in the Greek vocabulary behind “maid.”
paidion: Child; little child
παιδίον
Its shared stem makes the child-related sense of the family audible alongside this woman’s servant role.
ἔρχεται
erchetai
GROWS FROM
ἐρχ-
erch-
Come; arrive
“cometh” in this verse is erchetai. The Greek verb presents the maidservant’s arrival as motion into the scene. Related compounds distinguish coming in from coming near, making this small entrance the movement that brings Peter into contact with the high priest’s household.
ALSO GROWS
eiserchomai: Enter; go in
εἰσέρχομαι
This compound makes the inward movement in the shared “come” word-family explicit.
proserchomai: Approach; come near
προσέρχομαι
This branch names the nearness that turns the maidservant’s arrival into an encounter with Peter.
THE PATTERN
A person at the edge of power can carry the recognition or knowledge that changes what happens next.
And she said to her mistress, Would that my lord might meet the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would gather him from his leprosy.And when Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer.And the servant girl saw him again and began to say to those standing near, This man is from among them.THE THREAD
And the servant girl saw him again and began to say to those standing near, This man is from among them.The Greek repeats παιδίσκη (paidiskē), “maidservant,” the same word-family as the woman approaching Peter here. Her arrival becomes recognition: she sees him again and speaks, carrying the encounter from approach into exposure.
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