What Does Mark 7:25 Mean?
For a woman, whose little daughter had an unclean breath, heard of him, came, and fell at his feet.
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 a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:THE KEY
The daughter’s “unclean spirit” is an unclean pneuma, the same Greek word also names breath.
THE MEANING
A mother hears and moves, carrying her daughter’s distress to his feet. The verse speaks now wherever another person’s suffering reaches you through what you hear; the need becomes present in the one who carries the report.
THE ROOT
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνευ
pneu
to blow, to breathe
Here pneuma names breath, while also carrying the sense rendered “spirit.” One Greek word holds together what English can make seem separate: spirit and breath.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: to blow, to breathe
πνέω
The verb makes the breathing motion audible within the noun pneuma.
pnoē: breath, a blowing
πνοή
This related noun keeps the breath sense visible within the same word-family.
ἀκάθαρτον
akatharton
GROWS FROM
καθαρ
kathar
clean, pure
“unclean” in this verse is akatharton. The prefix a- marks what is not clean; beneath it is the kathar root. The word-family also grows into words for being clean and for cleansing, holding the condition and the language of cleansing together.
ALSO GROWS
katharos: clean, pure
καθαρός
This is the positive form of the root that remains inside akathartos.
katharizō: to cleanse, purify
καθαρίζω
The same root names an action of cleansing, extending the word-family beyond the state called unclean.
ἤκουσεν
ēkousen
GROWS FROM
ἀκου
akou
to hear, to listen
“heard” in this verse is ēkousen. The verb describes hearing about him, and that report is followed immediately by the mother’s approach. The same hearing-family can name both receiving a report and listening in a way that responds.
ALSO GROWS
akoē: hearing, report
ἀκοή
This branch can name the report itself, the news that reaches the mother.
hypakouō: to listen, heed, obey
ὑπακούω
This related verb shows how the hearing-root can extend toward a response.
THE PATTERN
Hearing turns a distant report into movement toward the need.
Then she rose with her daughters-in-law, and turned back from the field of Moab, for she had heard in the field of Moab that the LORD had visited his people by giving them bread.When she had heard about Jesus, she came into the crowd from behind and touched his garment.Then the word about these things came to the ears of the assembly that was in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch.THE THREAD
And Jesus, stirred in his inward parts, stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I will. Be clean."In this verse, “unclean” is akathartos, built on the kathar root; in Mark 1:41, “be thou clean” is a form of katharizō from that same root. The word-family holds the named condition together with the language of cleansing.
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