What Does Mark 7:21 Mean?
For from within, out of the heart of men, come evil weighings, fornications, thefts, murders,
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
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,THE KEY
This verse places harmful reasoning and visible acts in the same stream issuing from the heart.
THE MEANING
Destructive thoughts and actions emerge from within the human heart. The verse names thought and act together as things that proceed from the inner life. Its words speak to the reader’s interior now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that harm originates only in outside pressures or visible behavior; the verse places its source within the heart.
THE ROOT
διαλογισμοὶ πονηροί
dialogismoi ponēroi
GROWS FROM
λογίζομαι (logizomai), λογ- (log-)
To reckon, consider, or reason.
“weighings” in this verse is dialogismoi ponēroi. The word translated “thoughts” can name reasonings or deliberations. By placing those inner workings in the same list as outward acts, the verse locates harm in the inward stream from which both proceed.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: To reckon, consider, or reason.
λογίζομαι
It gives the thought-word its sense of active consideration, rather than a passing mental image alone.
dialogizomai: To reason through, deliberate, or consider.
διαλογίζομαι
This related verb makes visible the inward working of thought included in the verse’s “evil thoughts.”
καρδίας
kardias
GROWS FROM
καρδία (kardia), καρδ- (kard-)
Heart; the inner center of thought, desire, and choice.
Kardia names the inner center from which thought and action arise, not only the seat of emotion. Its compounds join the heart with knowing and with hardness, keeping perception and disposition within one inner life.
ALSO GROWS
kardiognōstēs: One who knows hearts.
καρδιογνώστης
This compound shows the heart as a place of knowing, as well as feeling.
sklērokardia: Hardness of heart.
σκληροκαρδία
This compound shows the heart as an inward disposition that shapes how a person responds.
THE PATTERN
What becomes visible in conduct issues from the inward heart.
And the LORD saw that the harm of humankind was great in the earth, and that every shaping of the thoughts of his heart was only harm all the day.Above every watch you keep, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life.A good human brings out good from the good treasure of the heart, and an evil human brings out evil from the evil treasure of the heart, for from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.THE THREAD
For out of the heart come evil reckonings, murders, adulteries, unlawful unions, thefts, false witness, harmful speech.Matthew repeats the same Greek words for “heart,” “proceed,” and “evil thoughts,” making the shared inner source unmistakable. Its longer list extends Mark’s picture of what issues from within.
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