What Does Mark 15:1 Mean?
And straightway in the early morning the chief priests took counsel together with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and handed him over to Pilate.
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 straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate.THE KEY
The council’s shared decision becomes a physical handoff: Jesus is bound, carried away, and given into Pilate’s authority.
THE MEANING
You see collective judgment become physical control: Jesus is bound, carried away, and handed to another authority. The violence moves through an orderly chain, with the person at its center treated as something to transfer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A united decision is automatically a just one. Here, the whole council acts together, and its agreement ends with Jesus bound and handed over.
THE ROOT
παρέδωκαν
paredōkan
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give; in παραδίδωμι, to hand over or transfer.
“handed him over” in this verse is paredōkan. The verb makes this a transfer of custody: Jesus passes from the council into Pilate’s authority. The same give-family forms παράδοσις (paradosis, handing down or tradition), so the scene’s handoff belongs to a wider language of passing something on.
ALSO GROWS
paradidōmi: Hand over, deliver
παραδίδωμι
This is the verb behind “delivered”: authority and custody pass from one set of hands to another.
paradosis: Handing down, tradition
παράδοσις
It shows the same give-family at work in what is passed from one person or generation to another.
δήσαντες
dēsantes
GROWS FROM
δέω
deō
To bind or fasten.
“bound” in this verse is dēsantes. The binding makes the council’s decision bodily: it is enacted on Jesus before he is carried away. Related forms name both the bond and the prisoner, holding together the restraint and the person restrained.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: Bond, fetter
δεσμός
The bond names the restraint enacted when Jesus is bound.
desmios: Prisoner, one in bonds
δέσμιος
This related word names the person as bound, making the shift from decision to bodily custody visible.
THE PATTERN
When power gathers as a group, its decision can become coordinated action against one person.
The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers sit down together against the LORD and against his anointed one, saying,They gather together against the living soul of an aligned one, and condemn the innocent blood.For in truth, in this city, against your set-apart servant Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate were gathered together with the nations and the peoples of Israel,THE THREAD
Look, we are climbing up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and to the scribes. They will condemn him to death and hand him over to the nations.The same Greek verb, παραδίδωμι (paradidōmi, hand over), describes the transfers in both verses. Mark 10:33 lays out the chain; Mark 15:1 shows the council’s handoff to Pilate.
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