What Does Mark 7:11 Mean?
But you say, If a man says to his father or his mother, Corban, whatever help from me you might have had, he is free.
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
But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.THE KEY
Corban comes from the Hebrew root for drawing near, yet here a gift declared near to God becomes the means of distance from a parent.
THE MEANING
A sacred designation can stand between a person and the material help their parent could receive. What is named as a gift becomes an exemption from giving that help, so devotion and withholding occupy the same act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that labeling a resource a gift to God makes withholding it from a parent neutral.
THE ROOT
δῶρον
dōron
GROWS FROM
δωρ
gift; something given
The Greek word names a concrete gift or offering. Here that label is used to make what could benefit a parent unavailable to them.
ALSO GROWS
dōreá: gift, bounty
δωρεά
This related word keeps the focus on something granted, sharpening the question of who receives the benefit.
dōréomai: give, grant
δωρέομαι
This verb from the same word family makes the act of giving explicit; the verse turns on whom the declared gift can actually benefit.
קָרְבָּן
qorbān
GROWS FROM
קרב
approach; draw near
“Corban” in this verse is qorbān. Qorbān is an offering, something brought near. The verse’s tension is that a declaration of nearness to God can be used to withhold help from the parents named in the same breath.
ALSO GROWS
qārab: draw near, approach
קָרַב
This verb reveals the movement carried by the offering’s name: bringing something near.
qārōb: near, close
קָרוֹב
This related word brings the root’s sense of nearness into view beside the distance created between parent and child.
THE PATTERN
When religious practice and concrete care collide, the text exposes devotion by what the practice leaves undone.
Give weight to your father and your mother, that your days may lengthen upon the ground which the LORD your God gives you.Woe to you, writers and separated ones, masked ones! For you give a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, and you have let go of the heavier matters of the instruction, the judgment, the faithful love, and the trust. These you ought to have done, and not let go of the others.Clean and unstained service before God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widowed in their being pressed, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.THE THREAD
But you say, Whoever says to his father or mother, It is a gift, whatever help you might have from me. And he shall not honor his father or mother. Thus you have emptied the commandment of God through your handing-down.Matthew uses the same Greek word δῶρον (dōron, gift) in this matching saying, then names the result: the command to honor parents is nullified. The shared word shows how the gift label becomes a way to block what could benefit them.
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