What Does Mark 15:4 Mean?
And Pilate asked him again, saying, Do you answer nothing? Look how many things they 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 Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they witness against thee.THE KEY
The verb beneath “witness against” means “accuse,” so the claims piling up around Jesus remain charges, not a verdict.
THE MEANING
The reader hears a demand for an answer as accusations multiply around Jesus. The phrase “witness against” carries the sense of accusation, naming a growing set of charges rather than a verdict already established. His silence remains beside those claims without being presented as an admission.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That the sheer number of charges already settles the truth of them.
THE ROOT
κατηγοροῦσιν
katēgorousin
GROWS FROM
κατηγορ-
katēgor-
To accuse or bring a charge.
“witness against” in this verse is katēgorousin. The verb here names an act of accusation: what is multiplying around Jesus is a set of charges. Its word family includes both the charge itself and the person making it, keeping accusation distinct from a verdict.
ALSO GROWS
katēgoria: Accusation, charge
κατηγορία
It names the kind of thing Pilate says is accumulating against Jesus.
katēgoros: Accuser
κατήγορος
It names the one bringing a charge, distinguishing the accuser from the truth of the claim.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places an accused person’s silence beside oppression or charge without treating silence itself as an admission.
He was pressed, and he was bowed low, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter, and like a ewe before her shearers he was mute, so he did not open his mouth.But he kept silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said to him, Are you the Anointed One, the Son of the Praised One?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
Do not think that I will speak against you before the Father. There is one who speaks against you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope.The verb κατηγορέω (katēgoreō, “to accuse”) is the same charge-word behind “witness against” in Mark. Its use here makes Pilate’s “how many things” legible as a mounting set of accusations, not a verdict already spoken.
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