What Does Mark 2:4 Mean?
And they could not draw near to him because of the press, so they stripped the roof above where he was, and when they had dug it open, they lowered the mat on which the paralyzed man lay.
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 they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.THE KEY
When the crowd seals the doorway, the roof becomes the way in: what covers access can be opened.
THE MEANING
A crowd can make your direct approach impossible without making encounter impossible. The man cannot move himself; others open the covering and lower him into Jesus’ presence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a blocked entrance means access is impossible; here, the opening comes through the roof.
THE ROOT
ἀπεστέγασαν
apestegasan
GROWS FROM
στέγη
stegē
Roof or covering; the related verb also means to cover and, by extension, to bear or endure.
“stripped” in this verse is apestegasan. The verb means taking the roof off, and its word family links a roof with covering and even bearing. The way opens when the covering over the blocked path is removed, allowing someone who cannot move himself to be brought within reach.
ALSO GROWS
stegē: The roof covering the place where Jesus is.
στέγη
The noun names the very covering the friends remove.
stegō: To cover or, in another use, to bear or endure; in 1 Corinthians 13:7, KJV renders it “Beareth all things.”
στέγω
English separates a physical covering from bearing, but the related word family holds both shades.
χαλῶσι
chalousi
GROWS FROM
χαλάω
chalaō
To lower or let down; in some uses, to loosen or slacken.
The man’s descent is deliberate passage through an opening, not a fall. The same verb is used when nets are lowered into water and when a person is lowered through a wall in a basket: in each case, someone or something is carried down by others.
ALSO GROWS
chalaō: Used in Luke 5:4 for lowering nets into the water.
χαλάω
The same verb describes a purposeful lowering into a place that cannot be reached from above without opening a way.
chalaō: Used in Acts 9:25 when Paul is lowered in a basket through a wall.
χαλάω
The shared verb makes the lowered bed here part of a wider image of passage through a boundary.
THE PATTERN
A barrier can become a passage when its covering is opened.
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.And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from above to below.But whenever it turns to the LORD, the covering is lifted off.THE THREAD
Then the disciples took him by night, and lowered him down along the wall in a basket.The same Greek verb χαλάω (chalaō, “let down”) describes the bed lowered through the roof and Paul lowered through a wall in a basket. In both scenes, others carry someone through an opening in a boundary.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us