What Does Mark 7:13 Mean?
Making the word of God void through your handing down, which you have handed down. And many things like these you do.
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
Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.THE KEY
The same act of handing something down can carry the word forward, or make it powerless beneath the thing handed down.
THE MEANING
A handed-down practice can make God’s word ineffective now when it takes the word’s place. The verse exposes transmission as an active force: what is passed along shapes what can be heard and lived.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A practice does not carry God’s authority simply because it has been handed down; inherited custom can itself make God’s word ineffective.
THE ROOT
παραδόσει
paradosei
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι (didōmi), in the compound παραδίδωμι (paradidōmi)
δίδωμι means “give”; with παρά, the compound means “hand over” or “pass along.”
“handing down” in this verse is paradosei. In Greek, “tradition” (παράδοσις, paradosis) and “delivered” (παρεδώκατε, paredōkate) come from the same hand-over word family. The verse lets you hear that what is handed down and the act of handing it down belong together: transmission can preserve the word, or render it ineffective when it takes the word’s place.
ALSO GROWS
paradosis: A handing over; that which is handed down, a tradition.
παράδοσις
This is the noun translated “tradition” in the verse.
paradidōmi: To hand over, deliver, or pass along.
παραδίδωμι
This is the verb behind “ye have delivered,” linking the practice to the act of passing it on.
THE PATTERN
What is handed on can carry God’s word forward when it remains faithful to it, or displace it when it takes the word’s place.
You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor shave anything away from it, that you may guard the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.So then, brothers, stand firm and grip the handed-over things you were taught, whether through word or through our letter.Watch lest anyone lead you off as spoil through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the handing down of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Now I praise you, brothers, that you remember me in all things and hold fast the things handed down, just as I handed them over to you.“Delivered” here comes from παραδίδωμι (paradidōmi), the same Greek word family behind “tradition” in Mark. The shared root shows the same act of passing something on can preserve teaching or, as Mark warns, make God’s word ineffective.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us