What Does Mark 5:1 Mean?
And they crossed over to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.
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 they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.THE KEY
“The other side” names the beyond: this verse makes arrival the completion of a crossing.
THE MEANING
You are beyond a familiar boundary, standing on ground you have not yet made familiar. The crossing and the arrival belong together: what was across the water is now where you are.
THE ROOT
πέραν
peran
GROWS FROM
περα-
pera-
Beyond, across; the Greek word family also carries the sense of crossing through.
English “other side” can sound like a location only, but πέραν (peran, beyond/across) names the destination as the beyond. Its related verb περάω (peráō, to cross or pass through) links that destination with the movement that reaches it: the beyond becomes the ground where you stand.
ALSO GROWS
péra: Beyond; on the far side.
πέρα
It shares the sense of what lies across a boundary, giving “the other side” its depth as the beyond.
peráō: To cross; to pass through.
περάω
It makes explicit the movement carried by this word family: reaching beyond involves crossing.
THE PATTERN
Passage through a boundary brings the traveler into a new relation with what lies beyond.
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.When you cross through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not kindle upon you.And that day, when evening had come, he said to them, Let us pass through to the other side.THE THREAD
And that day, when evening had come, he said to them, Let us pass through to the other side.The same Greek word, πέραν (peran, beyond/across), appears in both verses. Mark 4:35 names the beyond as the destination; Mark 5:1 places the travelers there.
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