What Does Mark 7:32 Mean?
And they brought to him one who was deaf and heavy of tongue, and begged him to place his hand upon him.
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
And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.THE KEY
The Greek word for “impediment in his speech” is the rare word Isaiah uses for the tongue that will sing when streams break through the wilderness.
THE MEANING
You are seen here as a whole person even when hearing or speech is constrained. Those around you carry the request for care, and the appeal is physical: a hand placed upon you. The verse leaves the encounter open, before it tells what happens next.
THE ROOT
μογιλάλον
mogilalon
GROWS FROM
μόλις + λαλέω (molis + laleō)
To speak with difficulty.
“heavy of tongue” in this verse is mogilalon. The word describes speech under strain. Its echo in Isaiah connects this very difficulty to the image of a tongue singing, so the request here carries a picture of speech opening.
ALSO GROWS
laleō: to speak, utter
λαλέω
This is the speech at the heart of the word, still present even when speaking is difficult.
molis: with difficulty, scarcely
μόλις
This names the strain that qualifies the speaking; the word holds both the effort and the voice together.
THE PATTERN
Scripture describes restoration as bodily capacities opening into action and expression.
And the LORD said to him, Who sets a mouth in humankind? Or who sets one mute, or deaf, or open-eyed, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?Then the limping one leaps like a hart, and the tongue of the mute rings out. For waters split open in the wilderness, and streams in the desert plain.The blind look up again, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are roused, and good news is carried to the emptied.THE THREAD
Then the limping one leaps like a hart, and the tongue of the mute rings out. For waters split open in the wilderness, and streams in the desert plain.The Greek Isaiah uses a form of μογιλάλος for “dumb”; Mark uses the same rare word for the man whose speech is difficult. This joins the request for touch to Isaiah’s image of a tongue singing as streams break through the wilderness.
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