What Does Mark 6:42 Mean?
And they all ate and were filled.
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 did all eat, and were filled.THE KEY
The word translated “filled” grows from a word for grass or fodder, picturing provision that feeds everyone to satisfaction.
THE MEANING
Fullness here means more than receiving a portion: everyone eats until their need is met. The verse presents enough as something shared, with no one left hungry at the meal’s end.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the fear that provision too small to see its ending must leave someone without enough.
THE ROOT
ἐχορτάσθησαν
echortasthēsan
GROWS FROM
χορτ- (from χόρτος)
Grass or herbage; by extension, fodder and feeding to satisfaction.
“were filled” in this verse is echortasthēsan. The verb ἐχορτάσθησαν comes from χορτάζω, a word connected to χόρτος, grass or fodder. That connection gives “filled” the texture of being fed until satisfied: the crowd’s need is met, not merely touched.
ALSO GROWS
chortos: Grass, herbage, or fodder.
χόρτος
This is the source word behind the feeding image in “were filled.”
chortazō: To feed, satisfy hunger, or fill.
χορτάζω
This verb names the movement from hunger to satiety that the verse describes.
THE PATTERN
Provision reaches its purpose when need is met with enough.
And when they measured it with an omer, the one who gathered much had nothing over, and the one who gathered little had no lack. Each one gathered according to his eating.For he sates the thirsting living soul, and fills the hungry living soul with goodness.Flourishing are those who hunger and thirst for alignment, for they are filled.THE THREAD
Flourishing are those who hunger and thirst for alignment, for they are filled.“They shall be filled” uses the same Greek verb family, χορτάζω (chortazō), as “were filled” here. One verse shows bodily hunger met at a meal; the other uses that same fullness for those who hunger for alignment.
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