What Does Mark 5:28 Mean?
For she said, "If I touch even his garments, I will be delivered."
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
For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.THE KEY
The word translated “whole” is also the Greek verb for deliverance: healing here is being brought out of affliction.
THE MEANING
Her words hold a bodily hope: she expects that even touching his clothes will bring her out of the condition she bears. “Whole” carries the sense of deliverance, so the outcome is concrete healing, not merely an inward feeling.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that healing requires direct contact with his body: she expects touching his clothes to be enough.
THE ROOT
σωθήσομαι
sōthēsomai
GROWS FROM
σῴζω
sōzō
To deliver, rescue, or bring safely out; here, to be made whole.
The future passive form σωθήσομαι (sōthēsomai, “I shall be made whole or delivered”) presents healing as something she receives. Its root, σῴζω (sōzō, “deliver, bring out”), also names rescue elsewhere, so “whole” carries the movement of being brought out of affliction.
ALSO GROWS
sōtēria: Deliverance, rescue
σωτηρία
This noun names the same movement contained in her expectation: she anticipates being brought out of what afflicts her.
sōtēr: Deliverer, rescuer
σωτήρ
This word for the one who delivers keeps the root’s focus on rescue, the outcome she expects from touching his clothes.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance reaches the body as healing that brings a person out of affliction.
He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.But he was pierced for our rebellion, and crushed for our crookedness. The straightening that made us whole was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.THE THREAD
Jesus said to him, Go on your way; your full weight leaning has delivered you. At once he looked up again and followed Jesus on the way.The Greek verb translated “whole” here comes from the same root, σῴζω (sōzō, “deliver, bring out”), as the word in Mark 5:28. In both verses, deliverance is bodily: one names healing from illness, the other the restoration of sight.
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