What Does Mark 5:9 Mean?
And he asked him, "What is your name?" And he answered, "Legion is my name, for we are many."
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 he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.THE KEY
One name gathers a multitude: “Legion” is singular, while “we are many” reveals what it contains.
THE MEANING
The verse places one name beside a plural voice and lets neither cancel the other. “Legion” gathers many into a shared designation, while “we are many” keeps their plurality explicit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that one name must mean one presence: the answer holds a singular designation and a multitude together.
THE ROOT
ὄνομα
onoma
GROWS FROM
ὄνομα
Name, designation, or identifying reputation.
The Greek word for name carries more than a label: it can identify the nature gathered under it. Here, one name holds a collective identity, and the answer immediately opens that identity into many.
ALSO GROWS
onomazō: To name, designate, or call by name.
ὀνομάζω
The act of naming gives a shared designation to the many voices named in the answer.
onomasti: By name; individually or specifically named.
ὀνομαστί
This branch brings the individual force of naming into view beside the collective name “Legion.”
THE PATTERN
A name gathers and discloses the nature carried by its bearer.
And out of the ground the LORD God shaped every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called every living soul, that was its name.A good name is to be chosen over great gathered wealth, and loving favor over silver and gold.The one who has an ear, let him hear and respond to what the breath says to the assemblies. To the one who overcomes I will give to eat from the hidden manna, and I will give him a white pebble, and upon the pebble a new name written, which no one knows except the one who takes it.THE THREAD
The one who has an ear, let him hear and respond to what the breath says to the assemblies. To the one who overcomes I will give to eat from the hidden manna, and I will give him a white pebble, and upon the pebble a new name written, which no one knows except the one who takes it.Both verses turn on the same Greek word, ὄνομα (onoma, “name”). In Mark, the name gathers many into one designation; here, a name marks an identity known by the one who receives it.
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