What Does Mark 7:3 Mean?
For the separated ones, and all the Jews, unless they wash their hands with a fist, do not eat, holding the handing down of the elders.
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 the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders.THE KEY
Tradition is something handed down, and here the hands that wash belong to people holding fast what they have received.
THE MEANING
This verse shows inherited practice shaping an ordinary moment: washing before eating and holding to what the elders hand down. A community’s memory lives not only in its words, but in the gestures repeated at the table.
THE ROOT
παράδοσις
paradosis
GROWS FROM
δο-/δω- (do-/dō-), as in δίδωμι (didōmi)
The verb δίδωμι (didōmi) means “give”; παρά (para) adds the sense of passing something over. παράδοσις (paradosis) is what has been handed down.
“handing down” in this verse is paradosis. “Tradition” can sound like an abstract custom, but παράδοσις (paradosis) carries the image of something handed over. The verse pairs that transmission with people actively holding what they have received.
ALSO GROWS
didōmi: to give
δίδωμι
It is the giving seed in the word for what is handed down.
paradidōmi: to hand over, deliver
παραδίδωμι
It names the act of passing something from one person to another.
paradosis: what is handed over; tradition
παράδοσις
This is the received teaching or practice the verse says the people hold.
κρατοῦσιν
kratousin
GROWS FROM
κρατ-
krat-
The stem κρατ- (krat-) carries the sense of strength or power; κρατέω (krateō) means to hold fast or retain.
The verb adds an active grip to the verse: what is handed down is also kept. Its word family connects holding with strength, so this is a practice maintained with resolve.
ALSO GROWS
kratos: strength, power
κράτος
It shows the strength and force associated with the same stem.
enkratēs: self-controlled, master of oneself
ἐγκρατής
It carries the sense of having mastery or control, another expression of the stem’s force.
THE PATTERN
What a community receives, it preserves through repeated words and practices.
And you shall sharpen them to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.For letting go of the commandment of God, you hold the handing down of men, like the immersions of pitchers and cups. And many things like these you do.So then, brothers, stand firm and grip the handed-over things you were taught, whether through word or through our letter.THE THREAD
For letting go of the commandment of God, you hold the handing down of men, like the immersions of pitchers and cups. And many things like these you do.This verse repeats both roots: παράδοσις (paradosis), what is handed down, and κρατέω (krateō), to hold fast. It makes explicit the link Mark 7:3 places beside hand washing: a received practice is something people actively keep.
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