What Does Mark 15:38 Mean?
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from above to below.
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 veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.THE KEY
The Greek verb Mark uses for the heavens splitting open at Jesus’ baptism is used here for the temple veil.
THE MEANING
The temple’s dividing veil stands torn from top to bottom. The boundary itself is ruptured, its opening reaching from above all the way down.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the dividing boundary remains sealed is undone here: the veil is torn all the way through.
THE ROOT
ἐσχίσθη
eschisthē was split
GROWS FROM
σχίζω
To split or tear apart.
“torn in two” in this verse is eschisthē was split. This verb describes a rupture, not a curtain being drawn aside. Mark uses the same root when the heavens are described as opened at Jesus’ baptism, joining the Gospel’s opening scene to this torn boundary.
ALSO GROWS
schizomenous: A form of σχίζω meaning “being split open.”
σχιζομένους
Mark uses it for the heavens at Jesus’ baptism, echoing the tearing verb used for the veil.
schisma: A split or division.
σχίσμα
The related noun names a division itself, showing that the root reaches beyond cloth to the separation the veil represents.
THE PATTERN
When the boundary that hides divine presence is torn away, what was separated becomes accessible.
And in this mountain he will swallow up the face of the covering wrapped over all peoples, and the veil poured out over all nations.Having therefore, brothers, open speech for entering the set-apart places by the blood of Jesus,And straightway, coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens split apart, and the Breath, like a dove, coming down upon him.THE THREAD
And straightway, coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens split apart, and the Breath, like a dove, coming down upon him.At the baptism, the heavens are σχιζομένους (schizomenous, being split open); here the veil is ἐσχίσθη (eschisthē, was split). Mark uses one Greek root for both ruptures, linking the opening above Jesus with the temple’s torn boundary.
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