What Does Mark 15:45 Mean?
And when he knew it from the commander of a hundred, he gave the body to Joseph.
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 when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.THE KEY
Mark’s word for Jesus’ “body” also carries the sense “a fallen thing,” so the handover holds death and care in a single moment.
THE MEANING
Death is confirmed plainly, and the body passes from Pilate’s authority into Joseph’s hands. The verse holds you at the threshold where the loss is clear and the body is received by another.
THE ROOT
πτῶμα
ptōma
GROWS FROM
πίπτω
piptō
to fall
The Greek noun πτῶμα (ptōma, “fallen thing” or “corpse”) comes from πίπτω (piptō, “to fall”). The word names the body through the fall into death, joining the physical reality of the corpse to the action that has happened.
ALSO GROWS
ptōsis: a fall or downfall
πτῶσις
This noun keeps the sense of falling visible in the same word family as the corpse given to Joseph.
katapiptō: to fall down
καταπίπτω
The compound makes the bodily movement explicit, echoing the fall carried inside the word for corpse.
ἐδωρήσατο
edōrēsato
GROWS FROM
δωρέομαι
dōreomai
to bestow or grant as a gift
“gave” in this verse is edōrēsato. The verb ἐδωρήσατο (edōrēsato, “he granted”) belongs to δωρέομαι (dōreomai, “to bestow as a gift”). Pilate’s act is a grant of custody: his authority places the corpse in Joseph’s hands.
ALSO GROWS
dōrea: a gift or grant
δωρεά
This noun makes the giving in Pilate’s action part of a family of words for bestowal.
dōrean: freely, as a gift
δωρεάν
This adverb preserves the gift sense within the same word family as the verb translated “gave.”
THE PATTERN
Even after death is confirmed, the body remains in someone’s keeping and is carried onward.
And Joseph made the children of Israel swear, saying, "God will surely look upon you, and you shall bring up my bones from here."And reverent men carried Stephen to his burial, and beat their breasts over him in great mourning.And after this, Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but hidden for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might lift away the body of Jesus, and Pilate allowed it. So he came, and took the body of Jesus.THE THREAD
And when his disciples heard, they came and lifted up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb.Mark uses πτῶμα (ptōma, “corpse” or “fallen thing”) for John’s corpse and for Jesus’ body here. The shared Greek noun joins the two deaths in Mark’s wording, while its sense of falling remains inside the English word “body.”
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