What Does Mark 6:18 Mean?
For John had said to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.
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 John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.THE KEY
Having the power to take something does not make it permissible to claim.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now wherever status or desire is treated as permission: the boundary remains real even when someone has the means to cross it. A bond does not become rightful just because a powerful person can possess it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the lie that whatever I can take or keep is mine by right.
THE ROOT
ἔξεστιν
exestin
GROWS FROM
ἔξεστι
exesti
An impersonal Greek expression meaning “it is permitted” or “it is allowed.”
“lawful” in this verse is exestin. The expression names permission, while the related word for authority shows how closely permission and power can sit together. The verse refuses to let the ability to exercise power stand in for the right to do so.
ALSO GROWS
exousia: authority, right, power
ἐξουσία
This related word brings authority into view: having power does not by itself establish that an act is permitted.
exousiazō: to exercise authority or have power over
ἐξουσιάζω
This active form makes the distinction visible: the capacity to act does not answer whether the act is allowed.
THE PATTERN
A person’s power or claimed right cannot erase a boundary named by truth.
Do not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife. It is your brother's nakedness.And Nathan said to David, You are the man. Thus says the LORD God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I snatched you out of the hand of Saul.Then Peter and the other sent ones answered and said, We must obey God rather than humankind.THE THREAD
Do not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife. It is your brother's nakedness.Leviticus names the same boundary directly: a brother’s wife remains within the brother’s bond. Mark’s phrase “not lawful” opens that boundary into the present, access and authority do not dissolve it.
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