What Does Mark 6:13 Mean?
And they cast out many demons, and rubbed with oil many who were without strength, and healed them.
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 cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.THE KEY
The Greek word translated “healed” also means to attend to and care for, so restoration arrives as hands-on tending.
THE MEANING
The verse holds release from what torments beside care for bodies weakened by illness. For you now, what afflicts can be met directly, and bodily weakness can receive care that restores. Healing is shown in the oil applied and the people made well.
THE ROOT
θεραπεύω
therapeuō
GROWS FROM
θεραπευ-
therapeu-
To attend, care for, or serve; also to treat or heal.
English “healed” can sound like an outcome alone, while this Greek word also carries the sense of attending to someone. The verse presents restoration as active care alongside the oil applied to sick bodies.
ALSO GROWS
therapeia: Attendance, care, or treatment.
θεραπεία
This related word keeps care close to the healing action in the verse.
therapōn: An attendant or servant.
θεράπων
The branch names the one who attends, revealing the care embedded in the healing word.
ἀλείφω
aleiphō
GROWS FROM
ἀλειφ-
aleiph-
To smear or apply oil to a surface.
“rubbed” in this verse is aleiphō. The verb names oil being put onto someone; that physical action remains visible beneath “anointed.” Here the oil reaches the sick body as part of the scene of restoration.
ALSO GROWS
aleimma: Ointment or unguent.
ἄλειμμα
This related word makes the applied substance concrete: the verb belongs to a family of oiling and ointment.
aleiptēs: One who anoints or oils.
ἀλείπτης
The person who applies oil shares the same word family as the action described here.
ἄρρωστος
arrōstos
GROWS FROM
ῥωννυ- (rhōnnu-), with privative ἀ- (a-)
The word is formed with ἀ- (“without”) from a root associated with strength: weak, without strength, ill.
“without strength” in this verse is arrōstos. The sickness word names a state of diminished strength, not a person’s fixed identity. The sentence meets that weakness with attendance and ends with healing.
ALSO GROWS
rhōnnymi: To strengthen or be strong.
ῥώννυμι
The root of the sickness word carries the idea of strength as its counterpart.
errōso: “Be well” or “be strong,” used as a farewell.
ἔρρωσο
This related form expresses well-being through the same strength-root.
THE PATTERN
Healing meets affliction through concrete care that reaches the body and restores strength.
And the crowds, when they knew it, followed him, and he received them, and spoke to them of the governance of God, and healed those who had need of healing.Is anyone among you without strength? Let him call to himself the older ones of the assembly, and let them pray over him, rubbing him with oil in the nature of the LORD.Then he went down and immersed himself seven times in Jordan, according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh returned like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.THE THREAD
And he healed many who were sick with various sicknesses, and threw out many demons. He did not let the demons speak, because they knew him.Mark uses the same Greek healing verb, θεραπεύω (therapeuō), here and in Mark 6:13. In both verses, healing the sick and casting out devils stand together, linking attentive care with release from what torments.
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