What Does Mark 5:21 Mean?
And when Jesus had crossed back over in the ship to the other side, a great crowd gathered to him, and he was beside the sea.
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 Jesus was passed over again by ship unto the other side, much people gathered unto him: and he was nigh unto the sea.THE KEY
The Greek repeats the crossing in its destination: Jesus passes across into the πέραν (peran, “beyond”), where the crowd is already gathering.
THE MEANING
Jesus is on the far side, a large crowd gathers around him, and the sea remains beside him. The destination is not empty; arrival opens into encounter. The boundary he has crossed is still present in the scene.
THE ROOT
διαπεράσαντος
diaperasantos
GROWS FROM
περα
The Greek family περα- (pera-) carries the sense of passing across or beyond.
“passed over” in this verse is diaperasantos. The verb for crossing and the word for the far side share the περα- family. English separates the movement from its destination, while Greek lets the destination echo the crossing itself.
ALSO GROWS
peran: beyond; the far side
πέραν
This is the destination named in the verse, sharing the crossing’s root.
peraō: to pass through or across
περάω
This verb makes the movement in “passed over” explicit.
peras: limit, boundary, end
πέρας
Its shared consonants π-ρ connect crossing with the limit it passes beyond.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
The root יָשַׁע (yasha) means to deliver or rescue, carrying the movement from constriction toward spaciousness.
The name rendered Jesus carries the Hebrew family of deliverance. Here that name stands on the far side of the crossing, as the crowd gathers around the one whose nature is bound to deliverance.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: to deliver, rescue
יָשַׁע
This verb is the root family carried in the name Yeshua.
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the deliverance associated with the name.
moshia: deliverer, rescuer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This word names one who brings deliverance from the same root.
THE PATTERN
A boundary that divides can be crossed, making the far side reachable.
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 the priests who lifted the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood steady on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had finished crossing over Jordan.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.Mark 4:35 uses πέραν (peran, “the far side”), the same Greek word that names the destination in Mark 5:21. In one verse the crossing is named ahead; in the other, Jesus has arrived and people are already gathering there.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us