What Does Mark 7:26 Mean?
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she asked him to throw the demon out of her daughter.
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
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.THE KEY
The requested relief is an expulsion: what afflicts the daughter is to be thrown out of her.
THE MEANING
A mother sees suffering in her daughter and asks that its afflicting presence be removed. Her appeal is direct and concrete: what harms the child is to be cast out.
THE ROOT
ἐκβάλῃ
ekbalē
GROWS FROM
βάλλω
ballō
to throw or cast
“throw ... out” in this verse is ekbalē. The verb ἐκβάλλω (ekballō, “throw out”) joins ἐκ (ek, “out”) with βάλλω (ballō, “throw”). Its image makes the request directional: what afflicts the daughter is to move from within her to outside her.
ALSO GROWS
kataballō: throw down, cast down
καταβάλλω
It keeps the family’s physical image of throwing, while this verse’s compound sends the force outward.
ballō: throw, cast
βάλλω
This is the underlying action inside “cast forth,” making the request’s image of removal visible.
ἠρώτα
ērōta
GROWS FROM
ἐρωτάω
erōtaō
to ask, request, appeal
“besought” in this verse is ērōta. The imperfect form ἠρώτα (ērōta, “was asking”) presents her appeal in progress. The same verb appears when a father asks Jesus to heal his son in John 4:47, linking these scenes through a parent’s request for a child.
ALSO GROWS
eperōtaō: ask, question, inquire
ἐπερωτάω
The added prefix extends the same asking verb into a question or inquiry.
erōtēma: question, request
ἐρώτημα
The related noun carries asking into the question or request itself.
δαιμόνιον
daimonion
GROWS FROM
δαίμων
daimōn
a spirit or supernatural being; here, a demon
The Greek noun δαιμόνιον (daimonion, “demon”) names the afflicting presence she wants cast out. The verse distinguishes what is being expelled from the act of expulsion itself.
ALSO GROWS
daimōn: spirit, supernatural being
δαίμων
This related noun sits behind δαιμόνιον (daimonion), the word for the presence named in the request.
daimonizomai: be afflicted or possessed by a demon
δαιμονίζομαι
This related verb describes a person under the influence of the kind of presence named here.
THE PATTERN
Relief is pictured as healing or deliverance from what afflicts and destroys.
He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.When Jesus saw that the crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean breath, saying to it, You mute and deaf breath, I command you, come out of him, and enter him no more.She did this for many days. But Paul, worn through with pain, turned and said to the breath, I command you in the nature of Jesus the Anointed One, to come out of her. And it came out that very hour.THE THREAD
When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and heal his son, for his son was at the edge of death.The Greek verb ἐρωτάω (erōtaō, “ask or appeal”) appears in both requests. Here a mother asks for her daughter’s release; in John, a father asks for his son’s healing, and the shared verb joins their appeals for their children.
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