What Does Mark 4:13 Mean?
And he said to them, Do you not perceive this parable? And how will you come to know all 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 he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?THE KEY
A parable places one thing beside another, and seeing the relation in one opens a pattern for understanding the others.
THE MEANING
This question speaks now: do you recognize what the parable of the sower is showing, and can that recognition open a way into the others? The Greek shifts from “know” to a verb for coming to know or perceive, pointing toward meaning found in the comparison itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that each parable is an isolated puzzle whose meaning must be solved separately.
THE ROOT
παραβολή
parabolē
GROWS FROM
παραβάλλω (para + ballō)
To put or cast something beside something else.
The Greek word for a parable carries the shape of a comparison: one thing is set beside another so their relation can be seen. This verse treats recognizing that relation in one parable as a way into the pattern of the others.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: Throw or cast.
βάλλω
This is the action at the heart of the compound: something is cast into relation with something else.
parabolē: Comparison, parable; something set beside.
παραβολή
The story is a comparison placed beside the reader, where its meaning opens through the relation between the two.
γινώσκω
ginōskō
GROWS FROM
γινωσκ-
ginōsk-
To come to know, recognize, or perceive.
The second “know” is γνώσεσθε, from γινώσκω (ginōskō, to come to know or perceive); the question begins with a different verb, οἴδατε (oidate, do you know or recognize). The movement is from recognizing this parable to perceiving the pattern that opens the others.
ALSO GROWS
gnōsis: Knowledge or recognition.
γνῶσις
It names knowing that has taken shape as recognition, rather than a bare label for the story.
gnōstos: Known or recognizable.
γνωστός
What becomes recognizable in this parable is the way a comparison can disclose meaning.
THE PATTERN
A parable sets a familiar image beside a reality, letting the relation between them disclose what the image alone cannot show.
I will open my mouth in a likeness, and pour out riddles of old.Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a likeness to the house of Israel.Another parable he laid beside them, saying, The governance of the heavens is like a grain of mustard, which a man took and sowed in his field.THE THREAD
And he said, To what shall we make the governance of God like, or with what parable shall we place it?The Greek word rendered “comparison” is παραβολή (parabolē, “a comparison or parable set beside”), the same word used in Mark 4:13. Here the move is explicit: God’s governance is set beside a mustard seed, showing how one parable opens a way to perceive the others.
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