What Does Mark 7:23 Mean?
All these evil things come from within and make the man common.
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
All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.THE KEY
The hidden force in “defile” is “make common”: the verse traces uncleanness to what rises from within.
THE MEANING
The verse locates what makes you unclean in what comes from within; the inward source becomes an outward expression and affects the whole person. The word translated “defile” also carries the sense of being made common or profane.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that outside contact is the deepest source of defilement: here, the source is what comes from within.
THE ROOT
κοινοῖ
koinoi
GROWS FROM
κοιν-
koin-
Common, shared, or ordinary; as a verb, to make common or profane.
“make ... common” in this verse is koinoi. The verb behind “defile” describes making something common or profane, giving the word a sense of changed status, not merely a mark on the surface. The same root appears in the word for sharing in common, linking commonness both with participation and with what is treated as profane here.
ALSO GROWS
koinos: Common, shared, or ordinary.
κοινός
This is the base word behind the verb; it shows the sense of “common” carried inside “defile.”
koinōnia: Sharing in common.
κοινωνία
The shared root connects the idea of being made common with the idea of participation held in common.
ἐκπορεύεται
ekporeuetai
GROWS FROM
πορευ-
poreu-
To go or proceed; the prefix ἐκ- marks movement out.
“come out” in this verse is ekporeuetai. The verb pictures the evil things as proceeding outward from within. The verse traces their path from inward source to outward effect.
ALSO GROWS
poreuomai: To go, travel, or proceed.
πορεύομαι
This base verb supplies the sense of movement in the verse’s “come out.”
ekporeuomai: To go out or issue forth.
ἐκπορεύομαι
The compound makes the outward direction explicit: these things proceed from within.
THE PATTERN
What begins within a person takes outward form and shapes that person’s lived condition.
Above every watch you keep, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life.But what comes out of the mouth comes forth from the heart, and that makes a person common.Then craving, when it has conceived, gives birth to falling short; and falling short, when it is full-grown, bears death.THE THREAD
And the voice spoke to him again the second time, What God has cleansed, do not make common.Mark’s verb for “defile” is κοινοῖ (koinoi), “makes common or profane”; Acts uses κοινόν (koinon), “common.” The shared root connects inward defilement with what is called common, while Acts adds that what God has cleansed must not be called common.
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