What Does Mark 4:35 Mean?
And that day, when evening had come, he said to them, Let us pass through to the other side.
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 the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.THE KEY
The destination is beyond, but the verb names a passage through: the way forward is itself a crossing.
THE MEANING
The invitation comes at day’s end: there is still somewhere to go as the light fades. “Pass over” carries the sense of going through to what lies beyond; the crossing is movement across the present, not a leap around it. The destination is named before it is seen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The day’s end means the way forward has ended.
THE ROOT
διέλθωμεν
dielthōmen
GROWS FROM
ἔρχομαι (erchomai), the lexical core of διέρχομαι (dierchomai)
Come, go; movement.
“pass through” in this verse is dielthōmen. The Greek verb combines διά (dia, through or across) with ἔρχομαι (erchomai, come or go), so the invitation holds the crossing within the movement. The destination is τὸ πέραν (to peran, the beyond or other side), but the verb gives no shortcut around the passage.
ALSO GROWS
erchomai: The basic Greek verb for movement toward or away.
ἔρχομαι
This is the motion at the heart of the invitation, before the compound frames it as going through.
parerchomai: A related compound built on the same come-and-go verb.
παρέρχομαι
Its movement passes by; in this verse, the compound διέρχομαι carries movement through toward a named beyond.
THE PATTERN
A new place is reached by passing through the boundary that separates it from the present one.
And the LORD said to Abram, Go away from your land, from your land of birth, and from your father's house, to the land I will let you see.And the children of Israel came into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.And they stepped into the boat, and went across the sea toward Capernaum. And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them.THE THREAD
And they crossed over to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.The same Greek come-and-go root inside “pass over” returns as “came”: the invitation’s movement has become arrival. The place first named only as “the other side” now has a location.
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