What Does Mark 6:43 Mean?
And they lifted up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces, and of the fish.
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 took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.THE KEY
The leftovers are not outside the miracle: the broken pieces themselves are gathered until twelve baskets are full.
THE MEANING
Provision reaches the hungry, and what remains afterward is gathered rather than discarded. The broken pieces are still part of the abundance: fullness includes what can be collected after the meal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is broken and left over has no place in fullness: here, the fragments themselves fill the baskets.
THE ROOT
κλασμάτων
klasmátōn
GROWS FROM
κλάω
klaō
to break
“broken pieces” in this verse is klasmátōn. The Greek word for the fragments grows from the word for breaking: the pieces are named by the breaking that made them. Yet they are gathered into full baskets, so what is broken remains part of the provision.
ALSO GROWS
klasis: breaking
κλάσις
The shared stem links the act of breaking with the fragments gathered here.
klasma: a broken piece or fragment
κλάσμα
This is the singular form behind the verse’s “fragments,” making the gathered pieces tangible rather than treating them as vague surplus.
THE PATTERN
Provision can exceed what is consumed, and its remainder still belongs to the abundance.
So he placed it before them, and they ate, and some remained, according to the word of the LORD.You lay out a table before my face, in full view of those who press me. You make my head rich with oil; my cup is soaked full.So they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the broken pieces of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above for those who had eaten.THE THREAD
So they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the broken pieces of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above for those who had eaten.John uses the same Greek word for “fragments,” κλάσματα (klasmata), joining the broken pieces in both verses through the same root. It also says the pieces remain “over and above” those who ate, then shows them gathered into full baskets.
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