What Does Mark 4:10 Mean?
And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.
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 was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable.THE KEY
The verse’s “alone” still has a circle around it: the crowd is gone, and those close enough to ask remain.
THE MEANING
A teaching can remain unclear even when it is close; the question belongs to the encounter. The people around Jesus are still asking what the parable means, and their asking is part of being near him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Not understanding at first does not mean you are outside the circle; those gathered closest still ask what the parable means.
THE ROOT
παραβολή
parabolē
GROWS FROM
βάλλω (ballō, “throw or cast”), with παρά (para, “beside”)
To cast or put something beside something else.
A parable is an image placed beside the truth it carries. The people around Jesus ask him to open the connection between the story and what it reveals.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: Throw or cast
βάλλω
This is the action inside the word: something is cast into view.
paraballō: Put beside; compare
παραβάλλω
This compound gives the sense of setting one thing alongside another.
parabolē: Comparison; parable
παραβολή
The story stands beside its meaning, and the question asks how the two belong together.
THE PATTERN
Understanding opens as a listener brings a question close to the source of the teaching.
Indeed, if you call out for discernment, and give your voice to discernment.Then Jesus let the crowd go and went into the house; and his learners came to him, saying, Make plain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.But without a parable he did not speak to them. Privately, to his own disciples, he untied all things.THE THREAD
But without a parable he did not speak to them. Privately, to his own disciples, he untied all things.This carries the same scene one verse further: when the disciples are alone with him, he expounds all things. The Greek παραβολή (parabolē, “parable” or “comparison”) is the image set beside its meaning; his explanation brings their connection into view.
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