What Does Mark 3:33 Mean?
And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?
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 answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren?THE KEY
This question loosens family from shared birth before the next verse names the bond that gathers Jesus’ family.
THE MEANING
This question brings inherited definitions of family into view without leaving them as the final boundary of belonging. Jesus’ next line gathers his family around whoever does God’s will, so his kinship reaches beyond shared blood.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that bloodline alone determines who belongs to Jesus’ family is undone.
THE ROOT
ἀδελφοί
adelphoi
GROWS FROM
δελφύς
delphys
Womb; ἀδελφός is commonly traced to the idea of being born from the same womb.
“brothers” in this verse is adelphoi. The word translated “brethren” carries shared birth inside it. Jesus asks who counts as his mother and siblings, then the next verse opens that kinship around doing God’s will.
ALSO GROWS
adelphos: Brother; sibling born from the same womb.
ἀδελφός
This is the singular form behind “brethren,” making shared birth part of the word’s background.
adelphē: Sister; female sibling.
ἀδελφή
The related feminine form shows that the same family language extends across brothers and sisters.
THE PATTERN
God forms a family whose belonging reaches beyond bloodline and inherited divisions.
God settles the lone ones into households; he brings out the bound ones in chains; but the ones who turn away dwell in a parched land.But as many as took him in, he gave the right to become children of God, to those who trust in his nature.There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither servant nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
For whoever does the will of God, this one is my brother, and my sister, and my mother.The next verse answers the question by naming a bond beyond shared birth: doing God’s will. The passage moves from the language of the same womb to a family gathered around shared response to God.
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