What Does Mark 6:5 Mean?
And he could there do no work of strength, except that he laid his hands upon a few 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 he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.THE KEY
The Greek word-family behind “could” and “mighty work” also holds healing inside the sentence’s stated limit.
THE MEANING
A limit in what can happen does not erase what still happens: a few sick people are healed. Here, power is intimate and bodily, arriving through hands laid on the sick.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a limit means total absence: even where no mighty work is possible, the verse still names actual healings.
THE ROOT
ἐδύνατο
edynato
GROWS FROM
δυναμ-
dynam-
capacity, ability, power
“work of strength” in this verse is edynato. The verb for “could” and the noun for “mighty work” share this Greek stem, giving capacity and power one word-family. That shared seed sharpens the tension: the sentence names an inability, then ends with healing as the exception that still happens.
ALSO GROWS
dynamai: to be able, have power
δύναμαι
This is the verb family behind “could”; the verse’s language of capacity grows from the same seed as its language of power.
dynatos: able, powerful
δυνατός
This branch carries both ability and power, echoing the verse’s tension between what is possible and what happens.
ἐθεράπευσεν
etherapeusen
GROWS FROM
θεραπευ-
therapeu-
attend to, care for, treat; heal
“healed” in this verse is etherapeusen. The Greek verb belongs to a word-family that also names care and attending. That gives the healing a close, bodily texture: power meets the sick through hands laid on them.
ALSO GROWS
therapeia: care, treatment, healing
θεραπεία
This related noun brings the care dimension of the healing into view alongside the result.
therapōn: attendant, servant
θεράπων
This branch names one who attends or serves, emphasizing the tending contained in the verb’s word-family.
THE PATTERN
Restoration becomes visible in concrete encounters with particular bodies.
He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.When the sun was sinking, all who had anyone sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on each one of them, and healed them.And it came to pass that the father of Publius lay down, gripped by fever and a bloody flux, and Paul went in to him, prayed, laid his hands on him, and healed him.THE THREAD
When the sun was sinking, all who had anyone sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on each one of them, and healed them.Mark and Luke use the same Greek verb, θεραπεύω (therapeuō, to attend to, care for, or heal), for what KJV renders “healed.” Luke’s “every one” brings the individual care in this verse into focus: hands meet each sick body.
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