What Does Mark 9:25 Mean?
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.
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
When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.THE KEY
The Greek uses one movement-root twice: out of him, and never into him again.
THE MEANING
Jesus names the spirit by the capacities it silences: speech and hearing. His command sends it out of the person and bars its return, making the release complete within the verse itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that once a silencing force enters a person, it must keep its place or inevitably return.
THE ROOT
ἔξελθε
exelthe
GROWS FROM
ἔρχομαι
erchomai
Come, go, or arrive; the compounds set the direction.
“come out / enter” in this verse is exelthe. The command uses two compounds of one movement verb: ex- turns it outward, while eis- names the inward path the spirit must never take again. English gives “come out” and “enter” as separate actions, but Greek binds exit and return into one controlled path.
ALSO GROWS
exerchomai: Go or come out
ἐξέρχομαι
This is the verb behind the command to leave the person.
eiserchomai: Go or come in
εἰσέρχομαι
The same verb-root names the inward movement that is explicitly forbidden from happening again.
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνέω
pneō
Blow or breathe.
“deaf breath” in this verse is pneuma. English “spirit” can sound detached from the body, while the Greek word-family also carries breath and wind. The spirit commanded out here is named with a word that keeps that bodily register within the text.
ALSO GROWS
pnoē: Breath, blast, or wind
πνοή
This branch makes audible the movement of air held within the word-family.
pneuma: Breath, wind, or spirit
πνεῦμα
The same word names the spirit in this verse and can also carry the sense of breath or wind.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
yasha
Deliver, bringing out from constriction into spaciousness.
“Jesus” in this verse is Yeshua. Yeshua is the Hebrew form behind the Greek name Iēsous, rooted in deliverance. That name-nature echoes the command here: the person is brought out from under the spirit’s hold.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: Deliver or rescue
יָשַׁע
This root gives the name Jesus its deliverance sense.
yeshuah: Deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This branch names the movement out of constriction that the command enacts.
THE PATTERN
Release is shown by a change in direction: what was shut or held is opened, loosened, or sent out.
Then the eyes of the blind open, and the ears of the deaf open.And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be muzzled, and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him into the midst, it came out of him, and did not hurt him.And straightway his ears were opened, the bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke straight.THE THREAD
And when he had said this, he breathed into them, and said to them, Take in the Set-Apart Breath.The Greek word translated “spirit” in Mark is pneuma; John uses the same word in “Holy Ghost” just after Jesus breathes on the disciples. The word’s breath-and-wind range stays audible here, revealing a bodily dimension that the English rendering “spirit” does not carry alone.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us