What Does Mark 3:23 Mean?
And he called them to himself and spoke to them in parables. How can the Adversary throw out the Adversary?
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 he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?THE KEY
The Greek links the parable, something placed beside another thing, with casting out: the question turns on a power trying to throw out itself.
THE MEANING
The question exposes a contradiction in the present: a force casting out itself acts against the unity that lets it hold power. What turns its force against itself becomes an agent of its own collapse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a power can attack itself and remain whole does not hold here: the act of casting out its own side reveals division within it.
THE ROOT
ἐκβάλλειν
ekballein
GROWS FROM
βάλλω
To throw, cast, or place; related forms show the stem βαλ-/βολ-.
“cast out” in this verse is ekballein. The Greek verb ἐκβάλλειν joins ἐκ, “out,” with βάλλω, “throw or cast.” The same βάλλω family appears in παραβολή, “parable,” from the idea of placing one thing beside another: the verse’s way of speaking and its act of casting out are linguistically linked.
ALSO GROWS
parabolē: parable; comparison, something placed alongside
παραβολή
This is the word translated “parables” in the verse, formed from the same βάλλω family with the sense of placing one thing beside another.
ekbolē: ejection; a throwing out
ἐκβολή
This noun shares the ἐκ- plus βολ- formation and makes the “casting out” action visible as a thing thrown outside.
apobolē: casting away; loss
ἀποβολή
This related βολ- form carries the sense of throwing something away, extending the verse’s image of expulsion.
THE PATTERN
A power that turns against itself weakens the structure it depends on.
And if a governance be split against itself, that governance cannot stand.The one who troubles his own house inherits breath, and the fool is a servant to the wise of heart.But if you bite and devour one another, watch that you are not used up by one another.THE THREAD
And if the Adversary casts out the Adversary, he is divided against himself, how then will his governance stand?Matthew uses the same Greek verb, ἐκβάλλω (ekballō), for casting out and names the result: Satan is divided against himself. That makes explicit what Mark’s question compresses, the attempted expulsion reveals an internal fracture.
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