What Does Mark 16:2 Mean?
And very early in the morning on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb at the rising of the sun.
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 very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.THE KEY
The tomb is approached at the sun’s rising, placing the apparent end of a life inside the first light of a new day.
THE MEANING
You meet this scene at the day’s threshold: the women reach the tomb as the sun rises. Night gives way to first light, but the verse has not yet disclosed what they find. The moment holds an ending-place inside a beginning.
THE ROOT
ἀνατείλαντος
anateilantos
GROWS FROM
τέλλω
tellō
To rise or come forth; to bring something into appearance.
The Greek uses ἀνατέλλω (anatellō, to rise) for the sun coming up. Its related noun ἀνατολή (anatolē, rising; east) names the direction of the sun’s appearance, so dawn carries both emergence and orientation as the women approach the tomb.
ALSO GROWS
anatolē: Rising; east
ἀνατολή
This related noun names the sun’s rising and the direction from which it appears.
epitellō: To rise or appear, especially of a heavenly body
ἐπιτέλλω
It shares the τέλλω stem and describes a celestial body coming into view.
σαββάτων
sabbatōn
GROWS FROM
σαββατ-
sabbat-
Sabbath or rest; ultimately from Hebrew שָׁבַת (shavat), to cease or rest.
The Greek phrase μία τῶν σαββάτων (mia tōn sabbatōn, “one of the Sabbaths”) idiomatically means the first day of the week. The week is named through its Sabbath rhythm, placing this dawn within a cycle marked by rest.
ALSO GROWS
sabbatizō: To keep the Sabbath; to rest on the Sabbath
σαββατίζω
This verb carries the same σαββατ- family into the act of Sabbath observance.
sabbatismos: Sabbath rest
σαββατισμός
This noun preserves the root’s sense of rest within the same Greek word family.
μνημεῖον
mnēmeion
GROWS FROM
μνη-
mnē-
Remembering or calling to mind.
The Greek word for the tomb belongs to the language of remembrance: a sepulchre is also a memorial. The women approach a place where the dead are remembered just as the day begins to emerge.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: Memory; remembrance
μνήμη
This noun shares the root and makes explicit the remembrance contained in the tomb’s name.
mnēmoneuō: To remember; to make mention of
μνημονεύω
This verb carries the same μνη- family into the act of remembering.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places renewal at the meeting point of darkness and rising light.
For the burning of his anger lasts a moment, and in his favor is life. Weeping may lodge in the evening, but a ringing cry of joy comes in the morning.But for you who stand in awe of my name, the sun of alignment shall rise with healing in its wings, and you shall go out and leap like calves from the stall.And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not take hold of it.THE THREAD
So that you may become children of your Father in the heavens, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the aligned and on the crooked.Matthew uses the same Greek verb ἀνατέλλω (anatellō, to rise) for the sun’s rising. Mark locates the women’s approach at that emergence; Matthew shows the sun rising over every kind of person.
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