What Does Mark 5:24 Mean?
And Jesus went with him, and a great crowd followed him and pressed upon him.
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 Jesus went with him; and much people followed him, and thronged him.THE KEY
The crowd does not merely surround Jesus; it presses him, while he moves with one person.
THE MEANING
You can be accompanied personally while surrounded by collective pressure. Jesus moves with one person as the crowd follows and presses him; the crowd’s nearness and his company are different kinds of closeness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that pressure from the many makes an individual disappear: the crowd closes around Jesus, and he still goes with one person.
THE ROOT
συνέθλιβον
synethlibon
GROWS FROM
θλιβ-
thlib-
to press, squeeze, or make tight
“pressed upon” in this verse is synethlibon. The crowd’s action is physical pressure, not simply presence around Jesus. This same Greek word family names affliction, letting the scene’s bodily compression echo into the pressure a person can carry.
ALSO GROWS
synthlibō: to press together, crowd, or crush
συνθλίβω
This is the compound verb used here: συν- (syn-, “together”) joins the root’s pressing, making the crowd’s closeness bodily compression.
thlipsis: pressure, affliction, or distress
θλῖψις
This noun belongs to the same recognized word family, with a β/ψ stem alternation; the root’s physical squeezing also names lived pressure.
ἠκολούθει
ēkolouthei
GROWS FROM
ἀκολουθ-
akolouth-
to follow or accompany along a path
“followed” in this verse is ēkolouthei. The verb presents the crowd’s following as ongoing while Jesus goes with Jairus. The verse distinguishes movement behind Jesus from the direct company he gives to one person.
ALSO GROWS
akolouthos: a follower or companion
ἀκόλουθος
This noun shares the same consonantal stem and makes the follower a person in relation to the one being followed.
akoloutheō: to follow or accompany
ἀκολουθέω
This is the verb’s lexical form; its shared stem links the crowd’s continuing pursuit to the broader idea of following a path with someone.
THE PATTERN
Pressure can be real without having the final word over movement toward life and spaciousness.
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.For narrow is the gate, and pressed in is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it.We are pressed on every side, yet not cramped into a narrow place; we are without a way through, yet not without a way out.THE THREAD
For narrow is the gate, and pressed in is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it.The Greek τεθλιμμένη (tethlimmenē, “pressed or narrowed”) comes from θλίβω (thlibō, “to press”), the root inside “thronged” here. In Mark, the root presses a body in a crowd; in Matthew, that same pressure describes a way that leads to life.
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