Mark 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus heals a man with a withered hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees begin planning with the Herodians to kill him. Large crowds come from many regions to be healed, and he appoints twelve men to be with him and to be sent out to preach. Scribes from Jerusalem accuse him of driving out demons by the ruler of demons; he answers with short comparisons and warns that speaking against the Holy Spirit is never forgiven. When his family comes to take charge of him, he says that whoever does God's will is his brother, sister, and mother.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • Jesus entered a synagogue again.
   • A man with a withered hand was in the synagogue.
2. 3:2
   • They watched Jesus to see whether he would heal the man on the sabbath.
   • Their purpose in watching was to have grounds to accuse him.
3. 3:3
   • Jesus told the man with the withered hand to stand up in the middle.
4. 3:4
   • Jesus asked them whether it is lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do evil.
   • Jesus asked them whether it is lawful on the sabbath to save a life or to kill.
   • They said nothing.
5. 3:5
   • Jesus looked around at them with anger.
   • Jesus was grieved at the hardness of their heart.
   • Jesus told the man to stretch out his hand.
   • The man stretched out his hand.
   • The man's hand was restored.
   • The hand was made whole like the other hand.
6. 3:6
   • The Pharisees went out.
   • The Pharisees immediately took counsel with the Herodians against Jesus.
   • Their counsel was about how they might destroy him.
7. 3:7
   • Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea.
   • A great crowd from Galilee followed him.
   • People came from Judea.
8. 3:8
   • People came from Jerusalem.
   • People came from Idumea.
   • People came from beyond the Jordan.
   • People came from the region around Tyre and Sidon.
   • A great crowd came to him.
   • They came because they had heard what great things he was doing.
9. 3:9
   • Jesus told his disciples that a small boat should stand ready for him.
   • The boat was to be ready because of the crowd.
   • The purpose was that the crowd would not crush him.
10. 3:10
    • Jesus had healed many people.
    • As a result, people pressed upon him to touch him.
    • All who had afflictions pressed upon him.
11. 3:11
    • The unclean spirits, whenever they saw him, fell down before him.
    • The unclean spirits cried out.
    • The unclean spirits said that he is the Son of God.
12. 3:12
    • Jesus sternly charged them repeatedly not to make him known.
13. 3:13
    • Jesus went up into the mountain.
    • Jesus called to himself those whom he wanted.
    • They came to him.
14. 3:14
    • Jesus appointed twelve.
    • The twelve were appointed to be with him.
    • The twelve were appointed so that he might send them out to preach.
15. 3:15
    • The twelve were to have power to heal sicknesses.
    • The twelve were to have authority to cast out demons.
16. 3:16
    • Simon was one of the twelve.
    • Jesus gave Simon the name Peter.
17. 3:17
    • James the son of Zebedee was one of the twelve.
    • John the brother of James was one of the twelve.
    • Jesus gave James and John the name Boanerges.
    • Boanerges means Sons of Thunder.
18. 3:18
    • Andrew was one of the twelve.
    • Philip was one of the twelve.
    • Bartholomew was one of the twelve.
    • Matthew was one of the twelve.
    • Thomas was one of the twelve.
    • James the son of Alphaeus was one of the twelve.
    • Thaddaeus was one of the twelve.
    • Simon the Cananaean was one of the twelve.
19. 3:19
    • Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve.
    • Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus.
    • They went into a house.
20. 3:20
    • The crowd came together again.
    • They could not even eat bread.
21. 3:21
    • Those close to Jesus heard about it.
    • They went out to seize him.
    • They said that he was out of his mind.
22. 3:22
    • The scribes had come down from Jerusalem.
    • The scribes said that he has Beelzebub.
    • The scribes said that he casts out demons by the prince of the demons.
23. 3:23
    • Jesus called them to himself.
    • Jesus spoke to them in parables.
    • Jesus asked how Satan can cast out Satan.
24. 3:24
    • If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
25. 3:25
    • If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
26. 3:26
    • If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand.
    • In that case he has an end.
27. 3:27
    • No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man.
    • After binding the strong man, he will plunder his house.
28. 3:28
    • Jesus said truly to them that all sins will be forgiven to the sons of men.
    • All blasphemies whatsoever they blaspheme will be forgiven.
29. 3:29
    • Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness.
    • Such a person is in danger of eternal damnation.
30. 3:30
    • Jesus said this because they were saying that he has an unclean spirit.
31. 3:31
    • His brothers and his mother came.
    • They stood outside.
    • They sent to him, calling him.
32. 3:32
    • A crowd was sitting around him.
    • They told him that his mother and his brothers were outside seeking him.
33. 3:33
    • Jesus answered them by asking who is his mother and who are his brothers.
34. 3:34
    • Jesus looked around at those sitting around him.
    • Jesus said that these are his mother and his brothers.
35. 3:35
    • Whoever does the will of God is his brother.
    • Whoever does the will of God is his sister.
    • Whoever does the will of God is his mother.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

A synagogue was the local Jewish assembly building, where the community gathered on the Sabbath to read and discuss scripture. It was not the temple; there was only one temple, in Jerusalem, while synagogues stood in every town. "Withered" here means shrunken and wasted, a hand paralyzed and shrunk from disuse rather than merely injured.

3:2

The Sabbath ran from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset and was the weekly day on which all work stopped. Teachers of the law debated at length which activities counted as work; most held that healing was permitted only when a life was in immediate danger, and this man's hand was not an emergency. "Accuse" is a legal word: they wanted grounds for a formal charge, not just something to complain about.

3:4

"Held their peace" is old English for kept silent. It has nothing to do with peace in the modern sense.

3:5

"Hardness of their hearts" is a Hebrew and Greek idiom for stubborn unwillingness to be moved or persuaded. In ancient usage the heart was the seat of thought and will, not just feeling, so a hard heart means a closed mind rather than a cold personality.

3:6

The Pharisees were a strict religious movement devoted to keeping the law of Moses, including detailed rules for the Sabbath. The Herodians were supporters of the family of Herod, the client rulers installed by Rome. The two groups had little in common and normally had no reason to cooperate, which is part of what makes the alliance striking.

3:7

"The sea" is the Sea of Galilee, a freshwater lake about thirteen miles long, not an ocean. Galilee was the northern region where Jesus lived; Judea was the southern region around Jerusalem, roughly eighty miles away.

3:8

Idumea lay south of Judea, the territory of the Edomites, whose people had been absorbed into Judaism a century or so earlier. "Beyond Jordan" means the east bank of the Jordan River. Tyre and Sidon were wealthy Phoenician port cities on the Mediterranean coast to the northwest, outside Jewish territory. Listing these places together signals that people were traveling from every direction, some of them a hundred miles or more.

3:9

"Ship" in 1611 English covered any vessel, including a small open fishing boat of the kind used on this lake. "Throng" as a verb means to press in on someone bodily; the danger was being crushed, not merely surrounded.

3:10

"Plagues" translates a Greek word meaning whips or lashes, used figuratively for diseases and afflictions of any kind. It does not mean epidemic, and these were not all the same illness.

3:11

"Unclean" is a ritual term rather than a description of dirt. In Jewish usage a thing or person was clean or unclean depending on whether it could come into contact with worship, so an unclean spirit is one belonging to the realm set against the holy.

3:12

"Straitly" means strictly or tightly; it is unrelated to "straight." The phrase "straitly charged" means gave a severe order.

3:13

The mountain is the high, hilly ground above the lake. Think of steep open hillsides, not a tall snowy peak.

3:14

"Ordained" in 1611 English simply means appointed or designated. It carries none of the later church sense of ordaining clergy. "Preach" means to announce or proclaim publicly, the work of a herald, rather than to deliver a sermon.

3:15

The King James Version uses "devils" where the Greek has "demons," a word for lesser hostile spirits. It is a different word from the one used for the devil or Satan, who appears in this chapter as a single figure.

3:16

"Surnamed" here does not mean gave a family name. It means added a second name alongside the first, a common practice. The new name Peter comes from the Greek word for rock or stone.

3:17

"Boanerges" is Mark's attempt to spell an Aramaic phrase in Greek letters. Aramaic was the everyday language of Galilee. Mark translates it for his Greek readers, as he does elsewhere with Aramaic words, which suggests his audience did not know the language.

3:18

"Simon the Canaanite" is misleading in English. The word behind it is not the place name Canaan but the Aramaic qan'ana, meaning zealous or enthusiast, which is why other translations read "Simon the Zealot." Some of these men are known by more than one name in the different lists of the twelve: Bartholomew means "son of Talmai," and Thaddaeus appears elsewhere as Judas son of James.

3:19

"Iscariot" is most often explained as "man of Kerioth," a town in southern Judea, which would make Judas the only member of the group not from Galilee. Other explanations have been proposed and the name remains uncertain. The King James "betrayed" translates a verb that means to hand over or deliver up, the ordinary word for turning someone in to the authorities.

3:20

"Eat bread" is a Hebrew idiom meaning to have a meal, since bread was the staple of every meal. It does not mean that bread specifically was unavailable.

3:21

"His friends" renders a Greek phrase meaning "those belonging to him," which normally indicates family and is understood that way here, given that his mother and brothers arrive later in the chapter. "Lay hold on him" means to seize him physically and take him away. "Beside himself" is old English for out of his mind.

3:22

Scribes were the professional experts in the written law, trained to copy, interpret and teach it. That these had "come down from Jerusalem" matters: Jerusalem was the religious center, so this was official scrutiny arriving from headquarters, and one travels "down" from Jerusalem in Hebrew idiom because the city sits high in the hills. "Beelzebub" is a name for the chief of the hostile spirits; the older form Beelzebul may mean "lord of the house," which would explain why the reply that follows turns on houses and kingdoms.

3:23

A parable in this sense is not necessarily a story. The Greek word covers any comparison, riddle or figure of speech used to make a point, which is what the short sayings about kingdoms and houses are.

3:27

"Spoil" here means to plunder or carry off loot, an old use of the word. It does not mean to ruin or to spoil in the modern sense. "Goods" means possessions or property.

3:28

"Verily" means truly, and translates the Hebrew word amen, used at the start of a sentence to stress that what follows is reliable. "Sons of men" is a Hebrew idiom for human beings in general, women included. To blaspheme is to speak abusively or insultingly, especially against God or sacred things.

3:29

"Holy Ghost" is not a specter. In 1611 English "ghost" simply meant spirit, and later translations read "Holy Spirit" because the word has narrowed since. The end of the verse is genuinely uncertain in the manuscripts: some read "guilty of an eternal sin," others "subject to eternal judgment" or "condemnation," which is the reading the King James follows with "in danger of eternal damnation." "In danger of" in 1611 English means liable to or legally answerable for, not merely at risk.

3:31

"Without" in 1611 English means outside, the opposite of within. "Brethren" is simply the older plural of brothers. The Greek word means blood siblings in ordinary usage, though readers have long disagreed over whether these men were sons of Mary, children of Joseph from an earlier marriage, or close relatives, and the word alone does not settle it.