What Does Mark 9:14 Mean?
And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude around them, and the scribes seeking together with them.
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 when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them.THE KEY
The Greek word translated “questioning” can name a shared search that has become a dispute.
THE MEANING
You can see how a crowd gathered around a question may find itself caught in contention. Here, the disciples stand inside a public dispute, and the word for “questioning” carries the sharper sense of debating together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that questioning is always neutral: this word can mean disputing, so a question can already carry contention.
THE ROOT
συζητοῦντας
syzētountas
GROWS FROM
ζητε-
zēte-
Seek, look for, or inquire.
“seeking together” in this verse is syzētountas. The participle comes from συζητέω (syzēteō, “seek or discuss together”), formed from σύν (syn, “with, together”) and ζητέω (zēteō, “seek”). “Questioning” can sound like neutral inquiry in English, while this Greek word can describe a debate or dispute; the seeking is shared, but the exchange is contentious.
ALSO GROWS
zēteō: Seek, look for.
ζητέω
The base verb reveals the searching inside the exchange.
epizēteō: Seek after, desire.
ἐπιζητέω
The prefix intensifies the same searching motion.
syzētēsis: Discussion, debate, dispute.
συζήτησις
This related noun makes explicit how seeking together can become contention.
THE PATTERN
Public questioning around a pressing matter can turn into a contest among the people gathered around it.
Therefore the people strove with Moses, and said, Give us waters that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you strive with me? Why do you test the LORD?So some of the separated ones said, This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath. Others said, How can a man who misses the mark do such signs? And there was a split among them.THE THREAD
And he asked the scribes, What are you seeking together with them?The same Greek verb appears again as Jesus asks the scribes what they are disputing with the disciples about. That question reveals the force of the exchange: the scene is not simply one of people asking for information, but of people caught in an argument.
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