The Fallible Study Bible

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Mark16:9–11

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

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Mark 16:9–11 — Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

9

Early on the first day of the week, after Jesus had risen, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had driven out seven demons.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

prōi prōtē sabbatou de Anastas ephanē prōton Maria tē Magdalēnē par’ hēs ekbeblēkei hepta daimonia

Word by word15 · parsed
πρωῒprōiEarlyG4404
√ πρωΐ — at dawnAdverb
prōi: at dawn The first word of the verse and of the longer ending: the hour before full light.
πρώτῃprōtē[on the] first [day]G4413
√ πρῶτος — foremost (in time, place, order or importance)AdjectiveDative Feminine Singular
σαββάτουsabbatouof the weekG4521
√ σάββατον — the Sabbath (iNounGenitive Neuter Singular
sabbaton: the Sabbath, hence a week Genitive: “of the week.” Gill argues the phrase belongs with the rising, not with the appearing, and cites the Syriac and Persic versions rendering it “now early on the first day of the week he rose.” Where the phrase attaches changes whether this verse dates the resurrection or only the appearance.
δὲdeG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ἈναστὰςAnastasafter [Jesus] had risenG450
√ ἀνίστημι — to stand up (literal or figurative, transitive or intransitive)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
anistēmi: to stand up (literal or figurative) An ordinary verb of getting to one's feet, pressed into service as the resurrection word. It is a participle, subordinate: the rising is the circumstance, and the main verb of the sentence is not “he rose” but “he was seen.” Mark's ending, as Maclaren observes of the whole section, shows us the disciples rather than the risen Lord.
ἐφάνηephanēHe appearedG5316
√ φαίνω — to lighten (shine), iVerbAorist Indicative Passive3rd Person Singular
phainō: to lighten (shine), to show Aorist passive, third singular. The lexicon's root sense is light: he was brought into visibility. The passive matters against the charge of hallucination, since the grammar makes the appearing something done to him and for her, not something generated by her grief. Barnes, on v. 11, presses the same point from the other side: the disciples “were not easily deceived.”
πρῶτονprōtonfirstG4412
√ πρῶτον — firstly (in time, place, order, or importance)AdverbSuperlative
prōton: firstly (in time, place, order, or importance) A superlative adverb, and the hinge of the verse. JFB registers the offence plainly, that this honour went to a woman “and that woman was NOT his virgin-mother.” Cambridge says the fact “clearly made a strong impression on the early Church.” Deuteronomy 19:15 requires two or three witnesses before a matter is established; here there is one, and the narrative puts her first anyway, which is why v. 11 follows as it does.
ΜαρίᾳMariato MaryG3137
√ Μαρία — Maria or Mariam (iNounDative Feminine Singular
τῇtēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Feminine Singular
ΜαγδαληνῇMagdalēnēMagdaleneG3094
√ Μαγδαληνή — a female Magdalene, iNounDative Feminine Singular
Magdalēnē: a woman of Magdala A rare name in the canon (the Verifier counts it in 12 verses), and every occurrence sits in a resurrection or ministry context. Maclaren is severe with the accumulated legend: “there is not the shadow of a foundation” for identifying her with the sinful woman of Luke 7, and he notes the reason against it, that she is named immediately after as one of the women who ministered to Jesus of their substance.
παρ’par’fromG3844
√ παρά — properly, nearPreposition
ἧςhēswhomG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounGenitive Feminine Singular
ἐκβεβλήκειekbeblēkeiHe had driven outG1544
√ ἐκβάλλω — to eject (literally or figuratively)VerbPluperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ekballō: to eject (literally or figuratively) Pluperfect: the deliverance was accomplished and remained accomplished. Ellicott notes that this detail about her is not drawn from John's resurrection narrative at all but from Luke 8:2, which is part of his case that vv. 9 to 20 are a condensation of the other Gospels rather than independent Markan matter.
ἑπτὰheptasevenG2033
√ ἑπτά — sevenAdjectiveAccusative Neuter Plural
hepta: seven The number of fullness. Not “many demons” but the complete number, so that the depth of the bondage and the completeness of the release are measured in the same figure. Maclaren builds his exposition on exactly this distance: “devil-ridden and gazing on the Risen Saviour.”
δαιμόνιαdaimoniademonsG1140
√ δαιμόνιον — a dæmonic beingNounAccusative Neuter Plural
daimonion: a demonic being Maclaren refuses to reduce possession to disease, arguing that Christ distinguishes it from sickness in the very structure of his commissions (“Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead” standing apart from “cast out devils”). Whatever the reader concludes about that, the text's own claim is that the first eyewitness of the resurrection was a person the narrative has already described as having been under an alien power.
10

She went and told those who had been with Him, who were mourning and weeping.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

ekeinē poreutheisa apēngeilen tois genomenois met’ autou penthousi kai klaiousin

Word by word10 · parsed
ἐκείνηekeinēSheG1565
√ ἐκεῖνος — that one (or (neuter) thing)Demonstrative PronounNominative Feminine Singular
ekeinos: that one A demonstrative used where an ordinary pronoun was available, so it points rather than merely refers: “that woman.” It sets up the sentence the unit turns on, because v. 11 opens with the matching masculine plural κἀκεῖνοι, “and those men.” That woman went and announced; those men heard and disbelieved. The whole contrast of the passage is carried by two demonstratives that English renders as a colourless “she” and “they.”
πορευθεῖσαporeutheisawentG4198
√ πορεύομαι — to traverse, iVerbAorist Participle PassiveNominative Feminine Singular
poreuomai: to traverse, to journey Pulpit makes a stylistic argument from this verb: it appears in Mark only in vv. 10, 12 and 15, yet twice in 1 Peter and once in 2 Peter, which he takes to “connect St. Peter with the writer of these verses.” Treat that as a suggestion about authorship, not a demonstration; vocabulary overlap this thin can be coincidence.
ἀπήγγειλενapēngeilen[and] toldG518
√ ἀπαγγέλλω — to announceVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
apangellō: to announce The verb of a messenger reporting back. Benson draws the consequence bluntly: the women “preached the joyful tidings of his resurrection to the apostles themselves.” Whatever office language one uses afterward, the first announcement of the risen Christ in this narrative is made by a woman to the men who would later preach it.
τοῖςtoisthoseG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Plural
γενομένοιςgenomenoiswho had beenG1096
√ γίνομαι — to cause to be ("gen"-erate), iVerbAorist Participle MiddleDative Masculine Plural
ginomai: to come to be Aorist middle participle, dative plural: literally “to those who had come to be with him.” Gill reads it of the wider company, not the Twelve only, citing Luke 24:9: those who “had heard his doctrine, and seen his miracles, and had had communion with him.”
μετ’met’withG3326
√ μετά — properly, denoting accompanimentPreposition
αὐτοῦautouHimG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
πενθοῦσιpenthousiwho were mourningG3996
√ πενθέω — to grieve (the feeling or the act)VerbPresent Participle ActiveDative Masculine Plural
pentheō: to grieve (the feeling or the act) A rare verb, in ten verses across the New Testament, and elsewhere it names the grief that either precedes blessing (James 4:9) or follows judgment (Revelation 18). Here it names the condition of the church on the morning of the resurrection: the disciples are in the posture of mourners at the exact hour there is nothing left to mourn.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
κλαίουσινklaiousinweepingG2799
√ κλαίω — to sob, iVerbPresent Participle ActiveDative Masculine Plural
klaiō: to sob, to wail Audible weeping, paired with pentheō as it is at Luke 6:25 and James 4:9. Gill's image is apt to the Greek: “like doves of the valley, mourning for their absent Lord, and for their own iniquities.”
11

And when they heard that Jesus was alive and she had seen Him, they did not believe it.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kakeinoi akousantes hoti zē kai etheathē hyp’ autēs ēpistēsan

Word by word9 · parsed
κἀκεῖνοιkakeinoiAnd when theyG2548
√ κἀκεῖνος — likewise that (or those)Demonstrative PronounNominative Masculine Plural
ἀκούσαντεςakousantesheardG191
√ ἀκούω — to hear (in various senses)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Plural
akouō: to hear Aorist participle: the hearing is complete and undisputed. Their failure is not a failure to receive the report but a refusal of it.
ὅτιhotithatG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
ζῇzē[Jesus] was aliveG2198
√ ζάω — to live (literally or figuratively)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
zaō: to live Present tense, third singular, one syllable: the shortest form the resurrection claim can take. Not “he rose” (a past act to be assessed) but “he lives” (a present state to be reckoned with). The apostolic preaching would later be built on this tense.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἐθεάθηetheathēshe had seen HimG2300
√ θεάομαι — to look closely at, iVerbAorist Indicative Passive3rd Person Singular
theaomai: to look closely at, to behold Aorist passive with hypo plus genitive of agent. Cambridge observes it is used in Mark only in this disputed section (here and v. 14), which is itself part of the evidence bearing on the ending's authorship. Theologically the passive is worth holding: the resurrection is reported as something that submitted itself to being looked at.
ὑπ’hyp’. . .G5259
√ ὑπό — under, iPreposition
αὐτῆςautēs. . .G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Feminine 3rd Person Singular
ἠπίστησανēpistēsanthey did not believe [it]G569
√ ἀπιστέω — to be unbelieving, iVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
apisteō: to be unbelieving The load-bearing word of the whole unit and a rare one (eight verses). The Verifier places its other occurrences at Luke 24:11 and Luke 24:41, where it describes the apostles again, and at Acts 28:24, Romans 3:3, 1 Peter 2:7 and 2 Timothy 2:13, where the letters use it of unbelief met in the wider mission. The word for what the apostles did with Mary's report is the word the New Testament keeps for unbelief as such; Mark does not soften it. JFB sees the apologetic weight: that this is “once and again repeated of them all” is what makes their later testimony, given at the risk of life, worth anything at all.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The passage that may not be Mark's — 9

⚙ No honest reading of this unit can begin anywhere but with the manuscripts. Ellicott lays out the case before he exposits a word of it: the verses “are not found in two of the oldest MSS.” (the Sinaitic and the Vatican), are marked doubtful in many others, and are missing from some versions; Jerome reported that “nearly all the Greek texts omit them,” Eusebius said the same of “the correct MSS.,” and Eusebius and Ammonius left them out of their tables of parallel passages. Ellicott is equally careful with the other side: Irenaeus cites them around A.D. 170, and they stand in the Alexandrian and Cambridge MSS. and twelve other uncials nearly as old as the two that omit them. Maclaren, expositing the section with full seriousness, still writes the parenthesis “{or whoever wrote this chapter}.” Poole declines to comment here at all and sends the reader to Matthew 28 and John 20. Cambridge refers the question to its own Introduction. That is where the commentators in this brief actually stand, and we are not going to smooth it over.

ii. First to Mary: the ranking word — 9

⚙ The verse turns on a superlative adverb, πρῶτον (G4412), which ranks rather than counts. Cambridge sets the scene precisely: the holy women had seen the stone rolled away and heard the angels, Peter and John had seen the empty tomb, but “Him they saw not.” The first person to whom the risen Christ showed himself was Mary of Magdala. JFB names the offence in period capitals, that the honour went to a woman “and that woman was NOT his virgin-mother.” Cambridge adds that the fact “clearly made a strong impression on the early Church.” Benson presses it further than most: the male disciples were passed over, he suggests, partly because they had “with inexcusable and shameful cowardice forsaken their Master,” and the women, showing “an uncommon magnanimity,” consequently “preached the joyful tidings of his resurrection to the apostles themselves.” Against the accumulated legend, Maclaren is blunt: the identification of Mary with the sinful woman of Luke 7 has “not the shadow of a foundation,” and there is a reason against it in the text. Gill, who does think her past was bad, still marks that this is inference: “as she is commonly thought to be, and very likely she had been.” What the text actually says of her is one thing, that seven demons had been cast out, and Ellicott notes that even this detail comes not from John's resurrection account but from Luke 8:2.

iii. Mourning, weeping, disbelieving — 10-11

⚙ The Greek builds a deliberate pair: ἐκείνη, “that woman” (v. 10), answered by κἀκεῖνοι, “and those men” (v. 11). She journeys and announces; they hear and disbelieve. Cambridge sees her going “in the fulness of believing faith,” hurrying back to Jerusalem with “her tale of joy.” She finds the company in the two participles of v. 10, penthousi kai klaiousin, mourning and weeping, which Gill likens to “doves of the valley, mourning for their absent Lord, and for their own iniquities.” Then the rare aorist ἠπίστησαν (G569) lands. Gill says their trouble was that Mary's words “seemed as idle tales to them,” and that they were “forgetting the words of their Lord.” Benson offers a gentler account: they did not suspect deception, only imagination. Maclaren's whole reading of the section is that Mark's theme here is not the resurrection but “what they thought of the testimony to the Resurrection.” Two commentators turn that failure into an argument. Barnes: their disbelief “is proof that they did not expect his resurrection; proof that they were not easily deceived.” JFB: precisely because unbelief “is once and again repeated of them all,” their later testimony, given “at the risk of life itself,” carries weight. Henry alone takes it pastorally, that Christ sees it needful “to rebuke and correct them for hardness of heart in distrusting his promise.”

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. Take the unit exactly as it presents itself and it is a passage about the asymmetry between evidence and belief. The grammar is unusually careful about who is passive. He was made to appear (ἐφάνη, aorist passive). He was gazed upon by her (ἐθεάθη, aorist passive). Nothing in the unit is credited to Mary's insight; the only active verbs given to her are journeying and announcing. And the only active verb given to the disciples is ἠπίστησαν, they disbelieved. So the text stages the resurrection as something done and shown, met by a company whose mourning was, at that exact hour, factually obsolete. Their grief was sincere and it was wrong. That is the uncomfortable part, and we do not think it should be softened into a lesson about the value of doubt: Henry is right that the narrative treats it as hardness of heart to be corrected, even while Barnes and JFB are right that it also happens to be excellent evidence. Both can be true at once, because the men are not credited with careful method; they are described as having forgotten what they were plainly told. Add the textual question and a second layer appears that we did not expect. The manuscript evidence for these very verses is contested, so the passage about a report received with disbelief is itself a report received with disbelief. We will not pretend that irony proves anything about the verses' authenticity. It does not. But it does set the honest posture for reading them: hold the content, mark the uncertainty, and let the four undisputed Gospels, which all record both the women at the tomb and the apostles' unbelief, carry the doctrinal weight. Nothing in this unit is asked to stand alone.

Their grief was sincere, and at that hour it was already false. (This line is the tool's fallible synthesis, not Scripture.)

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The Magdalene at the tomb: the parallel resurrection accounts verbal / quotation: confirmed

The Verifier confirms a shared Greek vocabulary running through John 20:1, John 20:18 and Matthew 28:1: the rare name Μαγδαληνή (G3094, found in only twelve verses in the canon), with Μαρία (G3137) and σάββατον (G4521). John 20:18 shares in addition the herald verb ἀπαγγέλλω (G518) which v. 10 uses of Mary's announcement. Ellicott's judgment about the direction of the borrowing is severe and should be reported as his: the narrative from v. 9 onward “becomes a very condensed epitome” of John's record of the appearance to Mary Magdalene, of Luke's Emmaus road, and of the other Gospels' endings. JFB and Pulpit both simply refer the reader to John 20:11-18 for the fuller scene.

John 20:1 · John 20:18 · Matthew 28:1

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G3094 Μαγδαληνή (rare, in 12 vv), G3137 Μαρία (46 vv), G4521 σάββατον (62 vv), and with John 20:18 also G518 ἀπαγγέλλω (46 vv). Greek to Greek, so the shared Strong's numbers are a real verbal basis. The rare G3094 plus Ellicott's explicit claim that this section condenses John's account supports the verbal tier; note that the direction of dependence is his inference, not the Verifier's finding.

Seven demons: the detail comes from Luke, not John verbal / quotation: confirmed

Ellicott states it flatly: Mark's description of her as one from whom Jesus “had cast out seven devils” is “not from St. John, but from Luke 8:2.” Gill cites Luke 8:2 at the same clause; Pulpit notes that Luke “mentions that ‘seven devils had gone out of her’” and that Mark “repeats it here.” The Verifier independently finds the shared lexemes. This is the single biographical fact the canon actually records about her before the resurrection, and everything else commonly attached to her name, as Maclaren insists, is legend.

Luke 8:2

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G3094 Μαγδαληνή (rare, in 12 vv), G1140 δαιμόνιον (55 vv), G3137 Μαρία (46 vv). Greek to Greek verbal link, and Ellicott names Luke 8:2 as the explicit source of the clause.

“Idle tales”: Luke's account of the same unbelief verbal / quotation: confirmed

Luke 24:11 shares both of this unit's distinctive verbs: ἀπιστέω (G569), the rare verb of v. 11, and φαίνω (G5316), the appearing verb of v. 9, which Luke uses in its other sense of how the women's words “appeared” to the apostles. Luke 24:41 adds the same rare apisteō for the disciples who “disbelieved for joy.” Gill and Cambridge both reach for Luke 24:11 here: Cambridge notes the women's words “appeared to them as ‘idle tales,’” and Gill says the same of Mary's report. The two evangelists agree on the least flattering datum in the resurrection record.

Luke 24:11 · Luke 24:41

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G569 ἀπιστέω (rare, in 8 vv) and G5316 φαίνω (31 vv) with Luke 24:11; G569 again with Luke 24:41. Greek to Greek, and the rarity of ἀπιστέω carries the verbal tier. Not a quotation in either direction: parallel narration of one event.

Apisteō: the eight verses of unbelief verbal / quotation: confirmed

The verb that ends this unit is rare enough to trace across the whole canon. The Verifier finds ἀπιστέω (G569) in only eight verses of the canon, and four of them stand outside the Gospels: Acts 28:24, Romans 3:3, 1 Peter 2:7 and 2 Timothy 2:13. ⚙ We do not have those contexts in front of us in this brief and will not characterise them from memory; what the concordance does establish is that the word the apostles' own reaction is described with in Mark 16:11 is the same rare word the apostolic letters later use of unbelief wherever they meet it. Their disbelief is not a foreign category placed at the edge of the story. It is the first recorded instance of the thing the rest of the New Testament spends itself addressing. Readers should check each of these four refs for themselves before drawing more from the link than the shared lexeme supports.

Romans 3:3 · 2 Timothy 2:13 · Acts 28:24 · 1 Peter 2:7

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G569 ἀπιστέω, a rare word found in only 8 verses in the canon; 2 Timothy 2:13 also shares G1565 ἐκεῖνος (237 vv, common, not load-bearing). Greek to Greek. The link is lexical concordance across the canon, not quotation; the rarity of the lexeme is what makes the concordance meaningful.

The same rare verb inside the same disputed ending flagged: verify source

The Verifier also returns Mark 16:16 on the strength of ἀπιστέω (G569). The lexical link is real, but it cannot be used as independent corroboration of anything, because Mark 16:16 lies inside the very longer ending whose authenticity Ellicott, Maclaren and Cambridge all place in question. A witness cannot vouch for itself. We record the link and flag it rather than quietly counting it as canonical support.

Mark 16:16

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G569 ἀπιστέω (rare, in 8 vv). Flagged not because the lexeme is doubtful but because the provenance of the linked verse is: Mark 16:16 stands within the longer ending (vv. 9-20), absent from Sinaiticus and Vaticanus per Ellicott, so it cannot independently attest the passage it belongs to.

Mourning and weeping: the pair that names a reversal structural / thematic: confirmed

The two participles of v. 10, πενθοῦσι (G3996, a rare verb in ten verses) and κλαίουσιν (G2799), occur together elsewhere in the canon at points of reversal. Luke 6:25 turns laughter into them as a woe; James 4:9 commands them as the road to being lifted up; Revelation 18:11 gives them to the merchants of Babylon when the reversal runs the other way. Here the pair describes the disciples at the one hour when the grounds for their grief have already been removed. We claim no quotation and no dependence, only that the Greek has a standing idiom for grief at a turning point and that this verse uses it.

Luke 6:25 · James 4:9 · Revelation 18:11

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G3996 πενθέω (rare, in 10 vv) and G2799 κλαίω (34 vv) at each of the three refs. Greek to Greek, so the shared Strong's numbers are a genuine verbal basis, but we tier it structural because there is no quotation or dependence in either direction, only a recurring idiom within a shared motif of reversal.

A true report that the hearers could not take in structural / thematic: confirmed

Genesis 45:26 records the same shape: the brothers tell Jacob that Joseph is alive and ruler over Egypt, and his heart goes numb, because he did not believe them. The pattern in Mark 16:11 is identical down to the tense, since what Mary announces is not “he rose” but ζῇ, “he lives.” Deuteronomy 19:15 supplies the legal background against which the disciples' reaction was reasonable and the narrative's choice of witness was not: a matter is established at the mouth of two or three witnesses, and Mary is one. Barnes reads their refusal as evidence of care rather than obstinacy; Gill reads it as forgetfulness of what Christ had told them. Both can be right, and neither excuses it.

Genesis 45:26 · Deuteronomy 19:15

basis: Cross-Testament (Hebrew to Greek), so no shared Strong's number is possible and no verbal tier is available. The recorded basis is a shared narrative pattern (a true report of one alive, refused by the hearers) and a shared legal framework for testimony. The brief's commentators do not make this link; the pattern is ours, offered as structural only.

The one who sought him and would not leave the place typological

Pulpit notes what the narrative implies about Mary's posture: “She had lingered about his tomb; her strong affection riveted her to the spot.” Song of Solomon 3:1-4 traces the same motion, the seeking by night, the not finding, the questioning of others, and then “I found him whom my soul loves” with the refusal to let him go. Read figurally this is an old reading of the Song, and read as a comment on Mark 16:9 it says something the grammar supports: the one who stayed was the one to whom he ἐφάνη, was made visible. We mark this as figural rather than demonstrated. No shared vocabulary exists to be checked, and no commentator in this brief draws the parallel.

Song of Solomon 3:1-4

basis: Figural reading, cross-Testament (Hebrew to Greek), so no shared Strong's lexeme is possible and no verbal claim is made. The figural reading of the Song as the soul seeking Christ is ancient and widely held; the specific application to Mary at the tomb is not attested by any commentator in this brief and is offered as the tool's own, to be tested.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The first witness is the one he had emptied ancient/widely-held

⚙ The verse binds the two facts in a single sentence and lets the reader draw the line: he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. The pluperfect ἐκβεβλήκει keeps the earlier deliverance standing in the present scene. Gill draws the redemptive conclusion directly: “it is an instance of abounding grace, that Christ should heap up favours on such an one.” Pulpit says Mark repeats the Lukan detail precisely “to show the power of love and penitence.” Maclaren measures the same distance as the point of the whole episode, “devil-ridden and gazing on the Risen Saviour.” The pattern is the gospel in miniature: the one who received the most is given the first sight, and the qualification for witness is not standing but having been delivered. Benson, reading the same data, notes that the male disciples were passed over.

Luke 8:2 · John 20:11-18

“He lives”: the present tense the church was built on ancient/widely-held

⚙ What the disciples heard and refused was a present indicative, ζῇ (G2198). Not a report about a past miracle but a claim about a living person, which is why refusing it is treated as unbelief rather than caution. JFB sees the apologetic consequence and states it exactly: because this unbelief is “once and again repeated of them all,” their later testimony “at the risk of life itself” means something. Barnes agrees that their resistance proves “nothing but the clearest evidence could undeceive them.” Henry turns it pastorally, that the proofs were given “gradually, and admitted cautiously, that the assurance with which the apostles preached this doctrine afterwards might the more satisfy.” The men who would die for the claim are first shown flatly disbelieving it, and the Gospel that records their unbelief is the same Gospel they preached.

Luke 24:41 · 2 Timothy 2:13

A woman first: the herald and the promise in Eden novel

⚙ Offered as the tool's own reading, to be tested. Genesis 3:15 sets the enmity between the serpent and the woman, and between his seed and hers, and it is the woman's seed who crushes the head. Mark 16:9 places at the first daylight after that crushing a woman who had herself been held by demonic power, now released and sent to announce that he lives. The correspondence is not verbal and cannot be, since the Testaments share no lexemes; it is a correspondence of shape, that the promise made to the woman is first reported by a woman, and that the one most obviously held by the serpent's power is the first to see the serpent's defeat. None of the commentators in this brief makes this connection. JFB, Cambridge and Benson all note the weight the early church placed on a woman being first, but they ground it in honour and in the failure of the male disciples, not in Genesis 3. We therefore mark this novel and hold it loosely.

Genesis 3:15 · Mark 16:9

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (c. 1905)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text. This unit lies inside the longer ending of Mark (16:9-20), and its authenticity is the largest honesty question here, larger than any intertextual one. Ellicott gives the fullest statement in this brief and we report it rather than paraphrase around it: the verses “are not found in two of the oldest MSS.” (the Sinaitic and the Vatican), are “marked as doubtful in many others,” and “are wanting in some versions”; in the Vatican MS. a blank space stands between Mark 16:8 and the start of Luke; Jerome reported that “nearly all the Greek texts omit them”; Eusebius said the same of “the correct MSS.,” and the passage is absent from the Eusebian and Ammonian tables of parallels. On the other side Ellicott records that Irenaeus refers to them around A.D. 170 and that they stand in the Alexandrian and Cambridge MSS. and in twelve other uncials “nearly (some say, quite) as old as the two which omit them.” He weighs two hypotheses, an unfinished second copy or a mutilated original later completed from the other Gospels, and judges the second “the more probable,” consequently reserving most of his exegetical notes for the Gospels where these narratives appear in fuller form.

What the other voices do with it. Maclaren expounds the section in full but writes “Mark {or whoever wrote this chapter}” in his own text, and opens his second exposition by saying it is not his business “to discuss questions of harmonising or of criticism.” Cambridge does not argue the point in its verse notes but refers the reader to its Introduction, pp. 15, 16. Poole declines to comment on vv. 9-11 at all, directing the reader to Matthew 28:9 and John 20:14-17, “who gives a more full account than any other of this appearance.” Cambridge's observation that ἐθεάθη occurs in Mark only here and at 16:14, and Pulpit's that πορεύεσθαι occurs only at vv. 10, 12 and 15, are both data in this dispute, though Pulpit turns his toward Petrine authorship rather than away from Markan.

Sources. Verse text is BSB (CC0). Parsing, transliteration and Strong's numbers are from the Berean interlinear as supplied in the brief. Every ✦ quotation is a verbatim contiguous substring of a named public-domain commentary, resolved mechanically from anchors; nothing in a voice block is retyped or paraphrased. Thread bases are Verifier-computed shared Strong's lexemes with canon frequencies, except where a badge explicitly states that no shared lexeme exists (the cross-Testament threads to Genesis, Deuteronomy and the Song of Solomon), which are marked structural or typological for exactly that reason.

What is uncertain and not resolved here. (1) Whether these three verses are Mark's. We do not know, and the brief's own voices do not agree. (2) The relation of this appearance to the visits of Mark 16:1-8: JFB proposes that Mary parted from the other women, returned with Peter and John, and saw Jesus on this second visit, but he introduces it by conceding “There is some difficulty here, and different ways of removing it have been adopted.” (3) Whether the phrase “the first day of the week” attaches to the rising or the appearing: Gill argues for the rising and cites the Syriac and Persic versions in support, while acknowledging the other pointing is held “by some.” (4) Mary's character before her deliverance. Gill assumes she was “a very wicked person,” but says so as inference; Maclaren says the whole tradition identifying her with the sinner of Luke 7 has “not the shadow of a foundation.” The canonical record is one clause: seven demons, cast out. (5) Every ⚙ paragraph, thread and reading marked as the tool's own is fallible synthesis, offered to be tested against the Word, and carries no authority of its own.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)