The Fallible Study Bible

The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible

Mark6:14–29

The Beheading of John

✦ Public-domain source — quoted & attributed⚙ AI synthesis — generated, verify

Mark 6:14–29 — The Beheading of John. 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.

14

Now King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known, and people were saying, “John the Baptist has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai ho basileus Hērōdēs ēkousen gar autou to onoma egeneto phaneron kai elegon hoti Iōannēs ho Baptizōn egēgertai ek nekrōn kai touto dia hai dynameis energousin en autō

Word by word28 · parsed
ΚαὶKaiNowG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ὁhoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
βασιλεὺςbasileusKingG935
√ βασιλεύς — a sovereign (abstractly, relatively, or figuratively)NounNominative Masculine Singular
basileus: a sovereign, king Mark alone calls him king. Gill notes he was only tetrarch of Galilee and was called king by courtiers and common people; Cambridge says the title is used in the ancient and wide sense, Matthew and Luke styling him more exactly the tetrarch; JFB flatly says he is so called “but only by courtesy.” The word matters for verse 23: a man who is not a king offers half a kingdom.
ἩρῴδηςHērōdēsHerodG2264
√ Ἡρώδης — heroicNounNominative Masculine Singular
ἤκουσενēkousenheard about thisG191
√ ἀκούω — to hear (in various senses)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
γὰρgarforG1063
√ γάρ — properly, assigning a reason (used in argument, explanation or intensificationConjunction
αὐτοῦautou[Jesus’]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 Masculine 3rd Person Singular
τὸtoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Neuter Singular
ὄνομαonomanameG3686
√ ὄνομα — a "name" (literally or figuratively) (authority, character)NounNominative Neuter Singular
ἐγένετοegenetohad becomeG1096
√ γίνομαι — to cause to be ("gen"-erate), iVerbAorist Indicative Middle3rd Person Singular
φανερὸνphaneronwell knownG5318
√ φανερός — shining, iAdjectiveNominative Neuter Singular
phaneros: shining, manifest The adjective of open visibility. Set against phylakē (prison) in verse 17 and the sealed tomb of verse 29, it frames the unit: the name that shines out cannot be shut in, and the head that is carried in on a dish does not silence it.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἔλεγονelegon[people] were sayingG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
ὅτιhotiG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
ἸωάννηςIōannēsJohnG2491
√ Ἰωάννης — Joannes (iNounNominative Masculine Singular
ὁhotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ΒαπτίζωνBaptizōnBaptistG907
√ βαπτίζω — to immerse, submergeVerbPresent Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
ἐγήγερταιegēgertaihas risenG1453
√ ἐγείρω — to waken (transitively or intransitively), iVerbPerfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
egeirō: to waken, raise (perfect passive) The perfect of standing resurrection. Cambridge: Herod's guilty conscience overrode his Sadducean profession that there is no resurrection. Note the theological irony the grammar makes: the first resurrection claim in Mark's Gospel is false in its object and exactly right in its form, and it is spoken by the man who signed the death warrant.
ἐκekfromG1537
√ ἐκ — literal or figurativePreposition
νεκρῶνnekrōn[the] deadG3498
√ νεκρός — dead (literally or figurativelyAdjectiveGenitive Masculine Plural
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τοῦτοtoutoThatG3778
√ οὗτος — the he (she or it), iDemonstrative PronounAccusative Neuter Singular
διὰdiais whyG1223
√ διά — through (in very wide applications, local, causal, or occasional)Preposition
αἱhaiG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Plural
δυνάμειςdynameismiraculous powersG1411
√ δύναμις — force (literally or figuratively)NounNominative Feminine Plural
dynamis: force, power Nominative feminine plural, the deeds themselves as subjects of the verb. Not “Jesus does powers” but “the powers are at work.” Herod's inference is causal and wrong: he has the effect right and the person wrong.
ἐνεργοῦσινenergousinare at workG1754
√ ἐνεργέω — to be active, efficientVerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
energeō: to be active, efficient Present active: continuous operation. The court's explanation of Jesus is a haunting; Mark's is the Spirit's power in the Son. The unit will end with a body in a tomb precisely because the court explanation cannot hold.
ἐνeninG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
αὐτῷautōhimG846
√ 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 PronounDative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
15

Others were saying, “He is Elijah,” and still others, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de alloi elegon hoti estin Ēlias de alloi elegon hoti Prophētēs hōs heis tōn prophētōn

Word by word15 · parsed
δὲdeG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ἄλλοιalloiOthersG243
√ ἄλλος — "else," iAdjectiveNominative Masculine Plural
ἔλεγονelegonwere sayingG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
ὅτιhotiG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
ἐστίνestinHe isG1510
√ εἰμί — I exist (used only when emphatic)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ἨλίαςĒliasElijahG2243
√ Ἡλίας — Helias (iNounNominative Masculine Singular
Ēlias: Elijah The most dangerous of the three guesses, because it is nearly right about the wrong man. Gill notes the popular expectation, grounded in the promise of Malachi 4:5-6 that Elijah would be sent before the day of the LORD, that the Tishbite would come bodily before the Messiah; Benson adds that they looked for him to descend from heaven and usher the Messiah in. ⚙ Mark's whole narrative strategy here turns on the misdirection: the crowd hands Elijah's name to Jesus at the very moment Mark is telling how the real Elijah figure was killed in a cell. The Gospel itself settles the identification later, at Mark 9:13, and the provenance of the written warrant claimed there is disputed, which is why our thread on it is flagged rather than confirmed.
δὲdeandG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ἄλλοιalloistill othersG243
√ ἄλλος — "else," iAdjectiveNominative Masculine Plural
ἔλεγονelegonG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
ὅτιhotiG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
ΠροφήτηςProphētēs[He is] a prophetG4396
√ προφήτης — a foreteller ("prophet")NounNominative Masculine Singular
prophētēs: a foreteller, prophet Anarthrous, and therefore a category rather than an identification. Every answer in verses 14 to 16 is a resurrection or a return: the crowd cannot imagine anything genuinely new, only the past coming back. That is exactly the failure Mark is diagnosing.
ὡςhōslikeG5613
√ ὡς — which how, iAdverb
Comparative particle: the whole guess is an analogy, “like one of the prophets,” and analogy is as far as the palace gossip gets.
εἷςheisoneG1520
√ εἷς — oneAdjectiveNominative Masculine Singular
τῶνtōnof theG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Plural
προφητῶνprophētōnprophets [of old]G4396
√ προφήτης — a foreteller ("prophet")NounGenitive Masculine Plural
16

But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has risen from the dead!”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de ho Hērōdēs Akousas elegen Iōannēn Hon egō apekephalisa houtos ēgerthē

Word by word11 · parsed
δὲdeBut whenG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ὁhoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ἩρῴδηςHērōdēsHerodG2264
√ Ἡρώδης — heroicNounNominative Masculine Singular
ἈκούσαςAkousasheard thisG191
√ ἀκούω — to hear (in various senses)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
ἔλεγενelegenhe saidG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
Imperfect of continuous speech. Herod's sentence is not a verdict but a compulsion; the tense is the tense of a man who cannot stop saying the thing.
ἸωάννηνIōannēnJohnG2491
√ Ἰωάννης — Joannes (iNounAccusative Masculine Singular
ὋνHonwhomG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounAccusative Masculine Singular
ἐγὼegōIG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounNominative 1st Person Singular
egō: I, me The emphatic pronoun is the theological centre of the verse. Maclaren: when conscience speaks, the excuses about Herodias's urgency, Salome's beauty, the rash oath and the guests all shrivel, and the deed stands clear as his own act.
ἀπεκεφάλισαapekephalisabeheadedG607
√ ἀποκεφαλίζω — to decapitateVerbAorist Indicative Active1st Person Singular
apokephalizō: to decapitate A rare verb, found in only four verses of the New Testament. Herod names his own crime with the technical word for it, and the same verb will be used of the executioner's act in verse 27, where the hand is another man's and the deed is still Herod's.
οὗτοςhoutosG3778
√ οὗτος — the he (she or it), iDemonstrative PronounNominative Masculine Singular
ἠγέρθηēgerthēhas risen [from the dead]G1453
√ ἐγείρω — to waken (transitively or intransitively), iVerbAorist Indicative Passive3rd Person Singular
egeirō: to waken, raise (aorist passive) A passive without a stated agent, and Herod plainly does not mean that God raised him. Gill observes that if Herod had been a Sadducee he now changed his mind and believed a resurrection from the dead, and adds the sober coda: so men may be convinced of sin and hold better notions of religion, and still not be converted.
17

For Herod himself had ordered that John be arrested and bound and imprisoned, on account of his brother Philip’s wife Herodias, whom Herod had married.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

gar ho Hērōdēs Autos aposteilas ton Iōannēn ekratēsen kai edēsen auton en phylakē dia autou tou adelphou Philippou tēn gynaika Hērōdiada hoti autēn egamēsen

Word by word24 · parsed
γὰρgarForG1063
√ γάρ — properly, assigning a reason (used in argument, explanation or intensificationConjunction
ὁhoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ἩρῴδηςHērōdēsHerodG2264
√ Ἡρώδης — heroicNounNominative Masculine Singular
ΑὐτὸςAutoshimselfG846
√ 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 PronounNominative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
autos: self The intensive pronoun with a named subject: Herod himself. Mark is assigning responsibility before he narrates the banquet where Herod will try to hide behind his oath and his guests.
ἀποστείλαςaposteilashad orderedG649
√ ἀποστέλλω — set apart, iVerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
τὸνtonthatG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
ἸωάννηνIōannēnJohnG2491
√ Ἰωάννης — Joannes (iNounAccusative Masculine Singular
ἐκράτησενekratēsenbe arrestedG2902
√ κρατέω — to use strength, iVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
krateō: to use strength, seize A verb of force. The prophet who could not be bribed is simply overpowered, which is the only argument left to a man who has lost the argument from the law.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἔδησενedēsenboundG1210
√ δέω — to bind (in various applications, literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
deō: to bind John, who came preaching release, is bound. Benson notes that John had experienced the advantage of the tetrarch's friendship and was still not afraid to displease him when duty required.
αὐτὸνauton. . .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 PronounAccusative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
ἐνenvvvG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
φυλακῇphylakē[and] imprisonedG5438
√ φυλακή — a guarding or (concretely, guard), the act, the personNounDative Feminine Singular
phylakē: a guarding, prison JFB and Pulpit both locate it from Josephus (Antiquities 18.5.2) in the fortress of Machaerus near the Dead Sea, and Pulpit adds that Herod's father had built a magnificent palace inside that fort, so the banquet and the cell may have stood within one wall. That detail, if right, is the geography of the whole scene: the dance and the block a corridor apart.
διὰdiaon account ofG1223
√ διά — through (in very wide applications, local, causal, or occasional)Preposition
αὐτοῦautouhisG846
√ 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
τοῦtouG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Singular
ἀδελφοῦadelphoubrotherG80
√ ἀδελφός — a brother (literally or figuratively) near or remote (much like G1 (Α))NounGenitive Masculine Singular
ΦιλίππουPhilippouPhilip’sG5376
√ Φίλιππος — fond of horsesNounGenitive Masculine Singular
τὴνtēnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
γυναῖκαgynaikawifeG1135
√ γυνή — a womanNounAccusative Feminine Singular
ἩρῳδιάδαHērōdiadaHerodiasG2266
√ Ἡρωδιάς — Herodias, a woman of the Heodian familyNounAccusative Feminine Singular
ὅτιhotiG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
αὐτὴνautēn[whom]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 PronounAccusative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
ἐγάμησενegamēsen[Herod] had marriedG1060
√ γαμέω — to wed (of either sex)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
gameō: to wed The aorist states the fact flatly, and the flatness is the scandal. Cambridge and JFB, from Josephus, set out the tangle: Herodias was granddaughter of Herod the Great, wife of Herod Philip, and niece of both brothers, and she came to Antipas on condition that his own wife, daughter of Aretas of Arabia, be put away. Verse 18 is not prudery; it is Leviticus.
18

For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife!”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

gar ho Iōannēs elegen tō Hērōdē hoti Ouk exestin soi echein sou tou adelphou tēn gynaika

Word by word16 · parsed
γὰρgarForG1063
√ γάρ — properly, assigning a reason (used in argument, explanation or intensificationConjunction
ὁhoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ἸωάννηςIōannēsJohnG2491
√ Ἰωάννης — Joannes (iNounNominative Masculine Singular
ἔλεγενelegenhad been tellingG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
Imperfect of repeated action. The whole moral weight of John's ministry sits in this tense: not a single outburst but a standing, unwithdrawn word, which is what makes Herodias's grudge in verse 19 a settled thing rather than a fit of temper.
τῷtōG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Singular
ἩρῴδῃHērōdēHerodG2264
√ Ἡρώδης — heroicNounDative Masculine Singular
ὅτιhotiG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
ΟὐκOukvvvG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
ἔξεστίνexestinIt is not lawfulG1832
√ ἔξεστι — so also neuter present participle of the same (with or without some form of G1510 (εἰμί) expressed)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
exesti: it is permitted, lawful The impersonal of legality. John's authority is borrowed, not personal: he invokes a text. This is why the charge cannot be answered by a king's pleasure, and why it can only be answered by a sword.
σοιsoifor youG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounDative 2nd Person Singular
ἔχεινecheinto haveG2192
√ ἔχω — to hold (used in very various applications, literally or figuratively, direct or remoteVerbPresent Infinitive Active
echō: to hold, have Present infinitive, continuous possession. The verb of holding is the unit's quiet refrain: Herod holds a wife he may not have, Herodias holds a grudge (verse 19), Herod holds John in custody, and in the end a girl holds a head on a dish.
σουsouyourG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive 2nd Person Singular
τοῦtouG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Singular
ἀδελφοῦadelphoubrother’sG80
√ ἀδελφός — a brother (literally or figuratively) near or remote (much like G1 (Α))NounGenitive Masculine Singular
adelphos: a brother The word repeated from verse 17. It is the precise term of the Levitical prohibition on taking a brother's wife, cited here by JFB at Leviticus 20:21, and it is what makes this a case at law rather than a case of taste.
τὴνtēnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
γυναῖκαgynaikawifeG1135
√ γυνή — a womanNounAccusative Feminine Singular
19

So Herodias held a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she had been unable,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de Hē Hērōdias eneichen autō kai ēthelen apokteinai auton kai ouk ēdynato

Word by word12 · parsed
δὲdeSoG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ἩHēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Singular
ἩρῳδιὰςHērōdiasHerodiasG2266
√ Ἡρωδιάς — Herodias, a woman of the Heodian familyNounNominative Feminine Singular
ἐνεῖχενeneichenheld a grudgeG1758
√ ἐνέχω — to hold in or upon, iVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
enechō: to hold in or upon Rare (three verses). Cambridge traces it to Luke 11:53, where the Pharisees “urge Him vehemently,” and to Genesis 49:23 in the Greek, where the archers sorely grieved Joseph. The lexical field is hostility held and aimed, and it makes Herodias the unit's one wholly consistent character: she alone never changes her mind.
αὐτῷautōagainst [John]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 PronounDative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἤθελενēthelenwantedG2309
√ θέλω — to determine (as an active option from subjective impulseVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
thelō: to determine, will Imperfect of settled purpose. Set beside Herod's οὐκ ἠθέλησεν in verse 26: she wills and cannot, he can and will not, and between the two a prophet dies.
ἀποκτεῖναιapokteinaito killG615
√ ἀποκτείνω — to kill outrightVerbAorist Infinitive Active
apokteinō: to kill outright The aorist infinitive of the blunt verb. Mark does not soften her intention into influence or intrigue; the object of her will is a killing.
αὐτὸνautonhimG846
√ 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 PronounAccusative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
καὶkaiButG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
οὐκoukvvvG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
ἠδύνατοēdynatoshe had been unableG1410
√ δύναμαι — to be able or possibleVerbImperfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
Imperfect of continuous inability. The one restraint in the narrative is not law or conscience but Herod's fear, and verse 20 names it.
20

because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man. When he heard John’s words, he was greatly perplexed; yet he listened to him gladly.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

gar ho Hērōdēs ephobeito ton Iōannēn kai synetērei auton eidōs auton dikaion kai hagion andra kai akousas autou polla ēporei kai ēkouen autou hēdeōs

Word by word24 · parsed
γὰρgarbecauseG1063
√ γάρ — properly, assigning a reason (used in argument, explanation or intensificationConjunction
ὁhoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ἩρῴδηςHērōdēsHerodG2264
√ Ἡρώδης — heroicNounNominative Masculine Singular
ἐφοβεῖτοephobeitofearedG5399
√ φοβέω — to frighten, iVerbImperfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
phobeō: to frighten, fear Imperfect middle: a standing dread. JFB adds Bengel's cut: Herod feared John, but John feared not Herod. Gill notes the ambiguity, whether this is reverence or terror, and observes that Matthew 14:5 has Herod fearing the multitude as well.
τὸνtonG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
ἸωάννηνIōannēnJohnG2491
√ Ἰωάννης — Joannes (iNounAccusative Masculine Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
συνετήρειsynetēreiprotectedG4933
√ συντηρέω — to keep closely together, iVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
syntēreō: to keep closely, preserve The verb that makes Herod, for a while, John's bodyguard against his own wife. It is the strangest fact in the unit: the man who will kill the prophet is the man who has been shielding him, and Mark reports both without smoothing either.
αὐτόνautonhimG846
√ 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 PronounAccusative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
εἰδὼςeidōsknowing [that]G1492
√ εἴδω — used only in certain past tenses, the others being borrowed from the equivalent G3700 (ὀπτάνομαι) and G3708 (ὁράω)VerbPerfect Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
αὐτὸνautonhe [was]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 PronounAccusative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
δίκαιονdikaiona righteousG1342
√ δίκαιος — equitable (in character or act)AdjectiveAccusative Masculine Singular
dikaios: equitable, righteous Character as it faces man (Ellicott). Herod's own testimony convicts him: he knew what John was, which removes every plea of ignorance from verse 27.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἅγιονhagionholyG40
√ ἅγιος — sacred (physically, pure, morally blameless or religious, ceremonially, consecrated)AdjectiveAccusative Masculine Singular
hagios: sacred, consecrated, holy Character as it faces God (Ellicott). Pulpit cites Chrysostom's exclamation on this: “What a great thing is virtue! for Herod fears him, even though dead.”
ἄνδραandramanG435
√ ἀνήρ — a man (properly as an individual male)NounAccusative Masculine Singular
καὶkaiWhenG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἀκούσαςakousashe heardG191
√ ἀκούω — to hear (in various senses)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
αὐτοῦautou[John’s words]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 Masculine 3rd Person Singular
πολλὰpollavvvG4183
√ πολύς — (singular) much (in any respect) or (plural) manyAdjectiveAccusative Neuter Plural
ἠπόρειēporeihe was greatly perplexedG639
√ ἀπορέω — to have no way out, iVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
aporeō: to have no way out The verb is a spatial metaphor for moral deadlock, and on the better text it is Mark's verdict on Herod: a man with no exit, who therefore takes the one that is offered him at a party. Pulpit: he was continually the victim of a conflict between the good and the evil within him, in which evil triumphed.
καὶkaiyetG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἤκουενēkouenhe listenedG191
√ ἀκούω — to hear (in various senses)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
αὐτοῦautouto himG846
√ 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
ἡδέωςhēdeōsgladlyG2234
√ ἡδέως — sweetly, iAdverb
hēdeōs: sweetly, gladly Geneva's marginal note is the sharpest word any of our voices speaks here: the tyrant was content to hear sentence pronounced against himself, but the seed fell on stony places. Gladness at preaching is not repentance, and Mark lets the adverb stand unqualified so the reader feels the horror of it.
21

On Herod’s birthday, her opportunity arose. Herod held a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai tois autou genesiois eukairou hēmeras genomenēs hote Hērōdēs epoiēsen deipnon tois autou megistasin kai tois chiliarchois kai tois prōtois tēs Galilaias

Word by word22 · parsed
ΚαὶKaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τοῖςtoisOnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Neuter Plural
αὐτοῦautou[Herod’s]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 Masculine 3rd Person Singular
γενεσίοιςgenesioisbirthdayG1077
√ γενέσια — birthday ceremoniesNounDative Neuter Plural
genesia: birthday ceremonies Plural, a festival. The whole machinery of a court at play is assembled so that one word from a girl can move it, which is Mark's comment on courts.
εὐκαίρουeukairou[her] opportunityG2121
√ εὔκαιρος — well-timed, iAdjectiveGenitive Feminine Singular
eukairos: well-timed, opportune Rare (two verses). Mark's most chilling adjective: the same vocabulary of a favourable moment that the New Testament elsewhere uses of grace is here the calendar of an assassination. The waiting of verse 19 ends not because Herodias grew stronger but because a date came round.
ἡμέραςhēmeras. . .G2250
√ ἡμέρα — day, iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
γενομένηςgenomenēsaroseG1096
√ γίνομαι — to cause to be ("gen"-erate), iVerbAorist Participle MiddleGenitive Feminine Singular
ὅτεhoteG3753
√ ὅτε — at which (thing) too, iAdverb
ἩρῴδηςHērōdēsHerodG2264
√ Ἡρώδης — heroicNounNominative Masculine Singular
ἐποίησενepoiēsenheldG4160
√ ποιέω — to make or do (in a very wide application, more or less direct)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
δεῖπνονdeipnona banquetG1173
√ δεῖπνον — dinner, iNounAccusative Neuter Singular
deipnon: dinner, banquet The formal evening feast. Mark has framed a murder inside a meal, and the reader who knows this Gospel knows what other meal is coming and what other body will be handed over at it.
τοῖςtoisforG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Plural
αὐτοῦautouhisG846
√ 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
μεγιστᾶσινmegistasinnoblesG3175
√ μεγιστᾶνες — grandeesNounDative Masculine Plural
megistanes: grandees, the greatest ones Rare (three verses). The superlative form matters: these are the greatest in Galilee, and their greatness is the reason Herod cannot back down in verse 26. Shame before the great is the executioner's real warrant.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τοῖςtoisG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Plural
χιλιάρχοιςchiliarchoismilitary commandersG5506
√ χιλίαρχος — the commander of a thousand soldiers ("chiliarch"NounDative Masculine Plural
chiliarchos: commander of a thousand A Roman military title inside a Galilean palace, one of many signs in this unit that Herod's kingship is borrowed. Gill lists the company as the great men of the court, the army and the province.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τοῖςtoistheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Plural
πρώτοιςprōtoisleading [men]G4413
√ πρῶτος — foremost (in time, place, order or importance)AdjectiveDative Masculine Plural
τῆςtēsG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
ΓαλιλαίαςGalilaiasof GalileeG1056
√ Γαλιλαία — Galilæa (iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
22

When the daughter of Herodias came and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests, and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai tēs thygatros Hērōdiados autēs tēs eiselthousēs kai orchēsamenēs ēresen tō Hērōdē kai tois synanakeimenois de ho basileus eipen tō korasiō Aitēson me ho ean thelēs kai dōsō soi

Word by word29 · parsed
καὶkai[When]G2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τῆςtēstheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
θυγατρὸςthygatrosdaughterG2364
√ θυγάτηρ — a female child, or (by Hebraism) descendant (or inhabitant)NounGenitive Feminine Singular
ἩρῳδιάδοςHērōdiadosof HerodiasG2266
√ Ἡρωδιάς — Herodias, a woman of the Heodian familyNounGenitive Feminine Singular
αὐτῆςautēsG846
√ 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
autos: self, her own The pronoun that makes the scene worse. Pulpit's point is that Mark goes out of his way to say the dancer was the queen's own daughter, so the degradation is domestic and deliberate, arranged by the mother who will name the price.
τῆςtēsG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
εἰσελθούσηςeiselthousēscameG1525
√ εἰσέρχομαι — to enter (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveGenitive Feminine Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ὀρχησαμένηςorchēsamenēsdancedG3738
√ ὀρχέομαι — to dance (from the ranklike or regular motion)VerbAorist Participle MiddleGenitive Feminine Singular
orcheomai: to dance Aorist middle participle in a genitive absolute. Mark spends one word on the dance and four verses on the oath it produced; the evangelist is not interested in the spectacle, only in what it bought.
ἤρεσενēresenshe pleasedG700
√ ἀρέσκω — to be agreeable (or by implication, to seek to be so)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
areskō: to be agreeable, to please The hinge of the whole unit. Everything that follows (the oath, the demand, the refusal to refuse) proceeds from a king's pleasure and a company's pleasure. Set against verse 18, where John said what was lawful: the passage is an argument between ἔξεστιν and ἤρεσεν, and in this hall pleasure wins.
τῷtōG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Singular
ἩρῴδῃHērōdēHerodG2264
√ Ἡρώδης — heroicNounDative Masculine Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τοῖςtoisvvvG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Plural
συνανακειμένοιςsynanakeimenoishis guestsG4873
√ συνανάκειμαι — to recline in company with (at a meal)VerbPresent Participle Middle or PassiveDative Masculine Plural
synanakeimai: to recline in company at a meal Present participle, “those reclining with him.” They are named again in verse 26 as the second reason Herod cannot retreat. Mark's murder has an audience, and the audience is half the cause.
δὲdeandG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ὁhotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
βασιλεὺςbasileuskingG935
√ βασιλεύς — a sovereign (abstractly, relatively, or figuratively)NounNominative Masculine Singular
εἶπενeipensaidG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
τῷtōto theG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Neuter Singular
κορασίῳkorasiōgirlG2877
√ κοράσιον — a (little) girlNounDative Neuter Singular
korasion: a little girl Rare (seven verses), and neuter in gender. The same diminutive Mark used of Jairus's daughter, whom the Lord raised. Here a child is the instrument by which a prophet is killed and is handed a severed head in verse 28. Mark does not comment; the word does.
ΑἴτησόνAitēsonAskG154
√ αἰτέω — to ask (in genitive case)VerbAorist Imperative Active2nd Person Singular
aiteō: to ask Aorist imperative. The verb governs the next four verses: he says ask, she asks her mother what to ask, she asks the king, and the asking is granted. Herod hands his authority to a child and the child hands it to Herodias.
μεmemeG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative 1st Person Singular
ὃhofor whateverG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounAccusative Neuter Singular
ἐὰνeanvvvG1437
√ ἐάν — a conditional particleConjunction
θέλῃςthelēsyou wishG2309
√ θέλω — to determine (as an active option from subjective impulseVerbPresent Subjunctive Active2nd Person Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
δώσωdōsōI will give [it]G1325
√ δίδωμι — to give (used in a very wide application, properly, or by implication, literally or figurativelyVerbFuture Indicative Active1st Person Singular
σοιsoito youG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounDative 2nd Person Singular
23

And he swore to her, “Whatever you ask of me, I will give you, up to half my kingdom!”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai ōmosen autē HO¦ti Polla ean aitēsēs me dōsō soi heōs hēmisous mou tēs basileias

Word by word15 · parsed
καὶkaiAndG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ὤμοσενōmosenhe sworeG3660
√ ὀμνύω — to swear, iVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
omnyō: to swear an oath Aorist of the act of swearing. ⚙ Nothing in the narrative compelled this. The oath is gratuitous, and it becomes, in verse 26, the reason the king gives himself for a murder. JFB: those in whom passion and luxury have destroyed self-command will in a capricious moment say and do what in their cool moments they bitterly regret.
αὐτῇautēto herG846
√ 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 PronounDative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
Ὅ¦τιHO¦tiG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
ΠολλάPollaWhateverG4183
√ πολύς — (singular) much (in any respect) or (plural) manyAdjectiveAccusative Neuter Plural
polys: much, many Neuter plural, an open quantity rather than a single wish. The generosity is theatrical and the theatre has an audience (verse 22), which is why it cannot be withdrawn.
ἐάνeanvvvG1437
√ ἐάν — a conditional particleConjunction
αἰτήσῃςaitēsēsyou askG154
√ αἰτέω — to ask (in genitive case)VerbAorist Subjunctive Active2nd Person Singular
μεmeof meG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative 1st Person Singular
δώσωdōsōI will giveG1325
√ δίδωμι — to give (used in a very wide application, properly, or by implication, literally or figurativelyVerbFuture Indicative Active1st Person Singular
σοιsoiyouG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounDative 2nd Person Singular
ἕωςheōsup toG2193
√ ἕως — a conjunction, preposition and adverb of continuance, until (of time and place)Preposition
ἡμίσουςhēmisoushalfG2255
√ ἥμισυ — (as noun) halfAdjectiveGenitive Neuter Singular
hēmisy: half Rare (five verses). Cambridge's parallel with Esther is exact in wording and inverted in outcome: there the half-kingdom formula saves a people, here it destroys a prophet.
μουmoumyG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive 1st Person Singular
τῆςtēsG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
βασιλείαςbasileiaskingdomG932
√ βασιλεία — properly, royalty, iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
basileia: royalty, kingdom The word is the same one Mark uses for the kingdom of God, and it stands here in the mouth of a client prince pledging half of what is not his. Mark 1:15 announced a kingdom that had drawn near; chapter 6 shows what the other kind of kingdom does with a prophet.
24

Then she went out and asked her mother, “What should I request?” And her mother answered, “The head of John the Baptist.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai exelthousa eipen autēs tē mētri Ti aitēsōmai de Hē eipen Tēn kephalēn Iōannou tou Baptizontos

Word by word16 · parsed
ΚαὶKaiThenG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἐξελθοῦσαexelthousashe went outG1831
√ ἐξέρχομαι — to issue (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
exerchomai: to go out The hinge of the scene's staging. Ellicott: peculiar to Mark. ⚙ Because the girl must leave and return, the murder passes through a doorway and a conversation, and every person involved has time to stop it. None does.
εἶπενeipen[and] askedG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
αὐτῆςautēsherG846
√ 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
τῇtēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Feminine Singular
μητρὶmētrimotherG3384
√ μήτηρ — a "mother" (literally or figuratively, immediate or remote)NounDative Feminine Singular
ΤίTiWhatG5101
√ τίς — an interrogative pronoun, who, which or what (in direct or indirect questions)Interrogative / Indefinite PronounAccusative Neuter Singular
αἰτήσωμαιaitēsōmaishould I requestG154
√ αἰτέω — to ask (in genitive case)VerbAorist Subjunctive Middle1st Person Singular
aiteō: to ask (aorist middle subjunctive) Deliberative, and middle: what shall I ask for myself? Pulpit prefers this reading over the future. ⚙ The middle voice quietly exposes the child: she is reaching for her own reward and is handed her mother's revenge instead.
δὲdeAndG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
ἩHēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Singular
εἶπενeipen[her mother] answeredG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ΤὴνTēnTheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
κεφαλὴνkephalēnheadG2776
√ κεφαλή — the head (as the part most readily taken hold of), literally or figurativelyNounAccusative Feminine Singular
kephalē: the head, the part most readily taken hold of Strong's own gloss is grim in context. The noun recurs in verses 25, 27 and 28, four times in five verses, which is Mark's way of refusing to look away.
ἸωάννουIōannouof JohnG2491
√ Ἰωάννης — Joannes (iNounGenitive Masculine Singular
τοῦtoutheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Singular
ΒαπτίζοντοςBaptizontosBaptistG907
√ βαπτίζω — to immerse, submergeVerbPresent Participle ActiveGenitive Masculine Singular
baptizō: to immerse (present participle) “The Baptizing One,” the participle also used at verse 14. Mark's last words about John before his death name him by his office, and the office was preparing a way for someone else.
25

At once the girl hurried back to the king with her request: “I want you to give me the head of John the Baptist on a platter immediately.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai euthys eiselthousa meta spoudēs pros ton basilea ētēsato legousa Thelō hina dōs moi tēn kephalēn Iōannou tou Baptistou epi pinaki exautēs

Word by word22 · parsed
ΚαὶKaivvvG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
εὐθὺςeuthysAt onceG2112
√ εὐθέως — directly, iAdverb
eutheōs: directly, at once Mark's signature adverb, here in the service of a murder; it returns at the head of verse 27 for the king's order. The Gospel that hurries from mighty work to mighty work hurries in this chapter only toward a killing.
εἰσελθοῦσαeiselthousa[the girl] hurried backG1525
√ εἰσέρχομαι — to enter (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
μετὰmeta. . .G3326
√ μετά — properly, denoting accompanimentPreposition
σπουδῆςspoudēs. . .G4710
√ σπουδή — "speed", iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
spoudē: speed, haste, eagerness The noun adds zeal to the speed, so the child is not merely quick but keen. Cambridge: a true daughter of her mother.
πρὸςprostoG4314
√ πρός — a preposition of directionPreposition
τὸνtontheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
βασιλέαbasileakingG935
√ βασιλεύς — a sovereign (abstractly, relatively, or figuratively)NounAccusative Masculine Singular
ᾐτήσατοētēsatowith her requestG154
√ αἰτέω — to ask (in genitive case)VerbAorist Indicative Middle3rd Person Singular
λέγουσαlegousaG3004
√ λέγω — properly, to "lay" forth, iVerbPresent Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
ΘέλωThelōI wantG2309
√ θέλω — to determine (as an active option from subjective impulseVerbPresent Indicative Active1st Person Singular
thelō: to determine, will Present indicative, undisguised. ⚙ Herod said “ask whatever you will”; she does not ask, she wills, and a king who had granted a wish finds himself facing a demand. Authority handed over is authority lost.
ἵναhinaG2443
√ ἵνα — compare G3588 (ὁ))Conjunction
δῷςdōsyou to giveG1325
√ δίδωμι — to give (used in a very wide application, properly, or by implication, literally or figurativelyVerbAorist Subjunctive Active2nd Person Singular
μοιmoimeG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounDative 1st Person Singular
τὴνtēntheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
κεφαλὴνkephalēnheadG2776
√ κεφαλή — the head (as the part most readily taken hold of), literally or figurativelyNounAccusative Feminine Singular
ἸωάννουIōannouof JohnG2491
√ Ἰωάννης — Joannes (iNounGenitive Masculine Singular
τοῦtoutheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Singular
ΒαπτιστοῦBaptistouBaptistG910
√ Βαπτιστής — a baptizer, as an epithet of Christ's forerunnerNounGenitive Masculine Singular
Baptistēs: a baptizer, epithet of Christ's forerunner The title noun. It is worth noticing that the demand is made in the form of the full public name: not “that prisoner” but “John the Baptist,” the whole reputation asked for on a dish.
ἐπὶepionG1909
√ ἐπί — properly, meaning superimposition (of time, place, order, etcPreposition
πίνακιpinakia platterG4094
√ πίναξ — a plateNounDative Masculine Singular
pinax: a plate, platter Rare (five verses). Cambridge traces the English “charger” to the French charger, to load, so “that on which anything is laid,” and notes the word occurs in the New Testament only here and at Matthew 14:8. ⚙ The detail is the obscenity of the scene: the head is not merely demanded, it is ordered as a course.
ἐξαυτῆςexautēsimmediatelyG1824
√ ἐξαυτῆς — from that hour, iAdverb
exautēs: from that very hour Last word of the demand, and the reason the execution happens during the feast rather than after sober reflection. Herodias had waited (verse 19); her daughter will not let Herod have an hour.
26

The king was consumed with sorrow, but because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to refuse her.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai ho basileus genomenos perilypos dia tous horkous kai tous anakeimenous ouk ēthelēsen athetēsai autēn

Word by word15 · parsed
ΚαὶKaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ὁhoTheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
βασιλεὺςbasileuskingG935
√ βασιλεύς — a sovereign (abstractly, relatively, or figuratively)NounNominative Masculine Singular
γενόμενοςgenomenoswasG1096
√ γίνομαι — to cause to be ("gen"-erate), iVerbAorist Participle MiddleNominative Masculine Singular
περίλυποςperilyposconsumed with sorrowG4036
√ περίλυπος — grieved all around, iAdjectiveNominative Masculine Singular
perilypos: grieved all around Cambridge's parallel is the most disturbing lexical fact in the unit: the adjective Mark chooses for Herod's sorrow at a banquet is the adjective he will choose for the Lord's sorrow in Gethsemane (Mark 14:34). ⚙ The lesson is not that the two griefs are alike but that grief proves nothing. One sorrowing man went out and was obedient unto death; the other sorrowed and signed a warrant.
διὰdiabut because ofG1223
√ διά — through (in very wide applications, local, causal, or occasional)Preposition
τοὺςtous[his]G3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Plural
ὅρκουςhorkousoathsG3727
√ ὅρκος — perhaps akin to G3725 (ὅριον))NounAccusative Masculine Plural
horkos: an oath Plural, and Pulpit's inference from the plural is exact: the promise was repeated. Poole draws the moral that a soul ignorant of God's law can imagine an oath to be the bond of iniquity, and JFB that men of no principle but troublesome conscience will stick at breaking a rash oath while yielding to the worst crimes.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τοὺςtousvvvG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Plural
ἀνακειμένουςanakeimenoushis guestsG345
√ ἀνακεῖμαι — to recline (as a corpse or at a meal)VerbPresent Participle Middle or PassiveAccusative Masculine Plural
anakeimai: to recline (as a corpse or at a meal) Strong's gloss on this root carries both senses, the reclining guest and the laid-out corpse, and Mark has both in the room within the hour. JFB names the motive plainly: false shame, which could not brook being thought troubled by religious or moral scruples.
οὐκoukvvvG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
ἠθέλησενēthelēsenhe did not wantG2309
√ θέλω — to determine (as an active option from subjective impulseVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
thelō: to will (aorist) The decisive negative of the unit. Herod could have; he would not. Every later attempt to place the blame on Herodias, on Salome, on the oath, or on the guests runs against this verb, and against his own ἐγὼ in verse 16.
ἀθετῆσαιathetēsaito refuseG114
√ ἀθετέω — to set aside, iVerbAorist Infinitive Active
atheteō: to set aside, annul The verb of voiding a pledge. Herod treats his own words as more binding than the sixth commandment, which is what Pulpit means by saying he thought that the words of a king were law.
αὐτήνautēnherG846
√ 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 PronounAccusative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
27

So without delay, the king commanded that John’s head be brought in. He sent an executioner, who went and beheaded him in the prison.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai euthys ho basileus epetaxen autou tēn kephalēn enenkai aposteilas spekoulatora kai apelthōn apekephalisen auton en tē phylakē

Word by word18 · parsed
καὶkaiSoG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
εὐθὺςeuthyswithout delayG2112
√ εὐθέως — directly, iAdverb
eutheōs: directly, at once Mark's urgency, inverted. The king who could not decide for a year decides in a moment, which is what Ellicott, Pulpit and Barnes all describe in different words as the collapse of a divided man.
ὁhotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
βασιλεὺςbasileuskingG935
√ βασιλεύς — a sovereign (abstractly, relatively, or figuratively)NounNominative Masculine Singular
ἐπέταξενepetaxencommanded thatG2004
√ ἐπιτάσσω — to arrange upon, iVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
epitassō: to arrange upon, command An order, not a decision. ⚙ The grammar of atrocity: one man wills it, another performs it, and Mark's repeated use of ἀποκεφαλίζω refuses to let the distance between them become an excuse.
αὐτοῦautouJohn’sG846
√ 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
τὴνtēnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
κεφαλὴνkephalēnheadG2776
√ κεφαλή — the head (as the part most readily taken hold of), literally or figurativelyNounAccusative Feminine Singular
ἐνέγκαιenenkaibe brought inG5342
√ φέρω — to "bear" or carry (in a very wide application, literally and figuratively, as follows)VerbAorist Infinitive Active
ἀποστείλαςaposteilasHe sentG649
√ ἀποστέλλω — set apart, iVerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
σπεκουλάτοραspekoulatoraan executionerG4688
√ σπεκουλάτωρ — a speculator, iNounAccusative Masculine Singular
spekoulatōr: a speculator, a soldier of the guard A Latin loanword, one of the Latinisms that mark Mark's Gospel. Cambridge notes that the use of a military term fits the fact, from Josephus, that Herod was at this time making war on Aretas, and that earlier English versions rendered it “hangman,” a term describing a mere accident of the office.
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἀπελθὼνapelthōnwho wentG565
√ ἀπέρχομαι — to go off (iVerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
ἀπεκεφάλισενapekephalisen[and] beheadedG607
√ ἀποκεφαλίζω — to decapitateVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
apokephalizō: to decapitate Rare (four verses). The deed is done offstage, in a sentence of seven words, without a single adjective. ⚙ Mark's restraint here is the opposite of the tradition that grew up around it (see the apparatus on Jerome's bodkin): the Gospel gives the fact and no relish.
αὐτὸνautonhimG846
√ 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 PronounAccusative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
ἐνeninG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
τῇtētheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Feminine Singular
φυλακῇphylakēprisonG5438
√ φυλακή — a guarding or (concretely, guard), the act, the personNounDative Feminine Singular
phylakē: a guarding, a prison The same noun as verse 17, closing the frame that opened there. John entered the prison for a sentence about a marriage and leaves it headless, and JFB reckons more than twelve months between the two.
28

The man brought John’s head on a platter and presented it to the girl, who gave it to her mother.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai ēnenken autou tēn kephalēn epi pinaki kai edōken autēn tō korasiō kai to korasion edōken autēn autēs tē mētri

Word by word20 · parsed
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἤνεγκενēnenken[The man] broughtG5342
√ φέρω — to "bear" or carry (in a very wide application, literally and figuratively, as follows)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
pherō: to bear, carry The verb of carrying a dish. The order in verse 27 and the act here use one root, so the Greek closes the loop between a word spoken at table and an object set on it.
αὐτοῦautou. . .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 Masculine 3rd Person Singular
τὴνtēn[John’s]G3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
κεφαλὴνkephalēnheadG2776
√ κεφαλή — the head (as the part most readily taken hold of), literally or figurativelyNounAccusative Feminine Singular
ἐπὶepionG1909
√ ἐπί — properly, meaning superimposition (of time, place, order, etcPreposition
πίνακιpinakia platterG4094
√ πίναξ — a plateNounDative Masculine Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἔδωκενedōkenpresentedG1325
√ δίδωμι — to give (used in a very wide application, properly, or by implication, literally or figurativelyVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
didōmi: to give The unit's most terrible repetition. Herod's δώσω (verses 22, 23) becomes ἔδωκεν twice here. A king's generosity, honoured exactly, produces a head passed from hand to hand.
αὐτὴνautēnitG846
√ 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 PronounAccusative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
τῷtōto theG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Neuter Singular
κορασίῳkorasiōgirlG2877
√ κοράσιον — a (little) girlNounDative Neuter Singular
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
τὸtoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Neuter Singular
κοράσιονkorasion[who]G2877
√ κοράσιον — a (little) girlNounNominative Neuter Singular
korasion: a little girl Now the subject of the verb. ⚙ Mark's narrative has taken a child from dancing to carrying a man's head across a hall in six verses, and never once calls her wicked. The judgment falls on the adults who used her.
ἔδωκενedōkengaveG1325
√ δίδωμι — to give (used in a very wide application, properly, or by implication, literally or figurativelyVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
didōmi: to give The second giving completes the chain: soldier to girl, girl to mother. JFB: Herodias did not shed the blood of the stern reprover, she only got it done, and then gloated over it.
αὐτὴνautēnitG846
√ 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 PronounAccusative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
αὐτῆςautēsto herG846
√ 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
τῇtēG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Feminine Singular
μητρὶmētrimotherG3384
√ μήτηρ — a "mother" (literally or figuratively, immediate or remote)NounDative Feminine Singular
29

When John’s disciples heard about this, they came and took his body and placed it in a tomb.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai autou hoi mathētai akousantes ēlthon kai ēran autou to ptōma kai ethēkan auto en mnēmeiō

Word by word16 · parsed
καὶkaiWhenG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
αὐτοῦautou[John’s]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 Masculine 3rd Person Singular
οἱhoiG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Plural
μαθηταὶmathētaidisciplesG3101
√ μαθητής — a learner, iNounNominative Masculine Plural
mathētēs: a learner, disciple John's own disciples, not Jesus'. JFB reflects that if these men had until now stood apart as adherents of John (Matthew 11:2), they may have come to Jesus as orphans, to cast in their lot with the Lord's disciples; Cambridge adds from Matthew 14:12 that they went and told Jesus.
ἀκούσαντεςakousantesheard about [this]G191
√ ἀκούω — to hear (in various senses)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Plural
ἦλθονēlthonthey cameG2064
√ ἔρχομαι — to come or go (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively)VerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἦρανērantookG142
√ αἴρω — to lift upVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
airō: to lift up The plain verb of picking up a weight. ⚙ Against the two counterfeit raisings of verses 14 and 16, this is the unit's only real lifting, and it is an act of love with no power in it at all.
αὐτοῦautouhisG846
√ 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
τὸtoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Neuter Singular
πτῶμαptōmabodyG4430
√ πτῶμα — a ruin, iNounAccusative Neuter Singular
ptōma: a ruin, a fallen thing The harshest noun in the passage, and Mark uses it of the man of whom the Lord said that among those born of women none was greater. ⚙ The Gospel does not soften what martyrdom leaves behind, and that refusal is part of its trustworthiness.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἔθηκανethēkanplacedG5087
√ τίθημι — to place (in the widest application, literally and figurativelyVerbAorist Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
tithēmi: to place, lay The verb of burial, and the last action in the unit. Herod's story ends with a head on a dish; John's ends with a body in a tomb and friends who came for it.
αὐτὸautoitG846
√ 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 PronounAccusative Neuter 3rd Person Singular
ἐνeninG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
μνημείῳmnēmeiō[a] tombG3419
√ μνημεῖον — a remembrance, iNounDative Neuter Singular
mnēmeion: a remembrance, a tomb ⚙ A memorial is exactly what Mark's account has become. Henry's line is the right close: the ways of God are unsearchable, but the triumph of the wicked was short, and Pulpit traces from Josephus and later writers the ends of Herod, Herodias and Salome.

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. A startled conscience, and the first resurrection in Mark — 6:14-16

Mark opens with a name that will not stay in one place: φανερὸν ἐγένετο, the name became shining. Cambridge notes it is peculiar to Mark that he ties Herod's watching observation to Christ's work as extended by the preaching and miracles of the Apostles, so the report reaches the palace last, by rumour. Three explanations circulate in the imperfect tense: Elijah, a prophet, and a risen Baptist. JFB puts it exactly: the murdered prophet haunted Herod's guilty breast like a specter, and seemed to him alive again and clothed with unearthly powers, in the person of Jesus. Cambridge adds that this guilty conscience triumphed over Herod's Sadducean profession that there is no resurrection, though Maclaren cautions that there is no proof Herod was a Sadducee at all, and our synthesis follows Maclaren's caution.

⚙ What the ⚙ layer notices is grammatical. The crowd's verb in verse 14 is ἐγήγερται, perfect: he has been raised and stands raised. That is the form of the Easter announcement, and Mark places it, wrongly aimed, in the mouth of a court. Herod's own version in verse 16 drops to the aorist ἠγέρθη and gains an emphatic ἐγὼ: John, whom I myself beheaded, this one was raised. Cambridge records that the pronoun “has the emphasis of a guilty conscience”; Maclaren, reading the same unusual word order, hears the king blurt the name, then take the guilt, then speak the dread. So the first resurrection claim in this Gospel is a false one, spoken by a murderer, and it is nonetheless the right shape. Gill's coda is the sober end of the matter: so men may be convinced of sin, and hold better notions of religion, and still not be converted.

ii. The law, the imperfect tense, and a grudge held in — 6:17-20

Mark backs up. Herod himself sent and seized and bound: three verbs, ἐκράτησεν (to use strength), ἔδησεν (to bind), and the prison. Benson calls the irons what they were and adds that John had tasted the tetrarch's friendship and was still not afraid to displease him when duty required it. The charge is not moral distaste but statute: Οὐκ ἔξεστίν σοι, the impersonal idiom of what the Law permits. JFB grounds it in the forbidden degrees of Leviticus 20:21 and in the plain fact that both the lawful spouses were living; Cambridge and JFB together reconstruct from Josephus the tangle of a woman who was sister-in-law and niece to two brothers. Pulpit notes what the tense adds: ἔλεγεν is imperfect, a repeated warning, not one outburst.

Then verse 19, where the rarest verb in the unit does the work. ἐνεῖχεν (G1758, only three verses in the New Testament) means, as Cambridge sets out, first to hold or keep fast within one, then to lay up or cherish wrath against another; Ellicott prefers “a grudge, or spite”; the older English versions had “laid waite for him” and “sought all occasion against him.” Cambridge also insists that ἤθελεν denotes a settled wish to kill. ⚙ Verse 20 then sets against that settled will the most divided sentence in Mark: Herod feared John, knew him righteous and holy, and was συνετήρει, keeping him safe from her. Ellicott and Cambridge both defend that sense of the verb from Luke 2:19 and Matthew 9:17; Barnes says plainly that Herod kept him in safe custody to preserve him from the machinations of Herodias. Note that the text here is contested: Ellicott states the better manuscripts give “he was much perplexed” (πολλὰ ἠπόρει, from a verb meaning to have no way out) where the Authorised text read “he did many things,” and Pulpit lays both out. Barnes and Cambridge build their finest lines on the older reading, and we have flagged that in their notes. Geneva, needing no textual decision at all, says the thing that kills: the tyrant was very well content to hear sentence pronounced against himself, but the seed fell upon stony places.

iii. A well-timed day: the dance, the oath, the demand — 6:21-26

The release of verse 19's frustration is not a change of heart but a date. εὐκαίρου ἡμέρας γενομένης: a well-timed day. Gill and Cambridge both read suitable for her designs. Cambridge notes that the Herodian princes kept their birthdays in imitation of the Roman emperors, and Ellicott sorts the guest list into court magnates, chiliarchs of the Roman rank, and the landowners of the province: the state assembled to watch. Pulpit is careful that the Greek says Herodias's own daughter danced, not a professional dancing girl, and Cambridge, quoting Farrar, feels the degradation of a princess of the Maccabaean line turning scenic dancer. Then the oath, twice: Ellicott's guest list and JFB's judgment meet here, for JFB says that those in whom passion and luxury have destroyed self-command will in a capricious moment say and do what in their cool moments they bitterly regret, and Cambridge hears behind “unto the half of my kingdom” the words of Ahasuerus to Esther.

⚙ Four wills are now in the room and the strongest belongs to the person with no office. Herodias ἤθελεν (verse 19), Salome says Θέλω (verse 25), Herod had said “whatever thou θέλῃς” (verse 22) and now οὐκ ἠθέλησεν, he was not willing, to set her aside (verse 26). Gill's line on the mother's answer is the epitaph of the scene: so sweet is revenge, that to have her will on that great and good man was more to her than half the king's dominions. Cambridge observes that περίλυπος, the king's grief, is the very word of Gethsemane and of the rich young ruler, and that observation is a knife: real sorrow is no evidence of repentance. Pulpit adds from the grammar that ὅρκους is plural, so he had repeated the rash promise once and again, and quotes Augustine: the girl dances, the mother rages, a rash oath is made amid the excitement of the feast, and the savage desires of Herodias are fulfilled. JFB draws the general rule: see how men of no principle but troublesome conscience will stick at breaking a rash oath while yielding to the worst crimes.

iv. The platter and the tomb — 6:27-29

Mark's signature εὐθὺς now serves an execution. Ellicott identifies σπεκουλάτωρ as a Latin loanword, originally a watchman or sentinel, applied by Latin writers of the period to soldiers used as couriers; Cambridge traces the corps to Tacitus and Suetonius and notes that under the emperors such men guarded the emperor and executed his commands, adding that the earlier English versions rendered it “hangman,” which describes a mere accident of the office. Geneva says the word means one who bears a short lance. ⚙ The rare verb ἀπεκεφάλισεν (G607, four verses) returns from Herod's own confession in verse 16, and the grammar of responsibility is exact: the hand is a soldier's, the aorist in verse 16 was Herod's own.

Then the dish. ἐπὶ πίνακι, on a platter, a word that occurs in only five verses. The head is served, twice handed over with the verb ἔδωκεν that Herod used for his promised gift. JFB: Herodias did not shed the blood of the stern reprover, she only got it done, and then gloated over it. Mark's last word is gentler and stranger. The disciples ἦραν the πτῶμα and ἔθηκαν it in a μνημεῖον: lifted the fallen thing, laid it in a memorial. Pulpit reports from Josephus that the remains were cast out of the prison and left neglected, which is why the burial had to be an act of love by friends. JFB sees further, and we follow him: one reason the Lord might not be unwilling that a small body of John's disciples should cling to their master to the last was to provide attached friends who should do for his precious body, on a small scale, what was afterwards to be done for His own. Cambridge adds from Matthew 14:12 that they then went and told Jesus. Henry closes the account: the ways of God are unsearchable, but the triumph of the wicked was short.

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

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested by Scripture and by better readers. Mark has written a chapter about who has power to raise the dead, and he has written it as a story about a man who cannot say no. Every axis of the passage is a contest of wills marked by one Greek root, θέλω: Herodias willed a killing and could not get it (verse 19), Herod told a girl to ask whatever she willed (verse 22), the girl said “I will” (verse 25), and Herod was not willing to set her aside (verse 26). Only one will in the story is never named with that verb, and it is John's. He does not will; he says what is written, in the imperfect, until the word costs him his head. The unit therefore reads as an anatomy of two authorities. One is a kingship that is not a kingship, a man Mark alone calls king who could not lawfully promise half of what he offered, whose oaths bound him to nothing and whose guests bound him to everything. The other is a bound prisoner with no army, whose sentence Οὐκ ἔξεστίν σοι outlasts the dynasty it was spoken to.

And ⚙ would press one thing further, as a reading rather than a fact. The resurrection is named three times in this passage, and every naming is false: the crowd's perfect ἐγήγερται, Herod's aorist ἠγέρθη, and the whole superstition that a murdered man had come back to work δυνάμεις. Mark lets the false announcement come first, and comes from the mouth of the guiltiest man in the narrative, so that when the true announcement is made at an empty tomb by an angel to women, the reader has already learned what the words cost and what they do not mean. Conscience can produce a counterfeit resurrection. It cannot produce an empty tomb. The line offered below as a pullquote is our own interpretive sentence, not a verse of Scripture, and should be tested as such.

The first resurrection announced in Mark is a lie, told at a banquet by the man who signed the death warrant, and it still gets the shape of the truth exactly right.

⚙

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.

Ahab, Jezebel and Elijah: the same three people in a different palace typological

Maclaren states the pattern outright: Herod, Herodias and John the Baptist make a triad singularly like the other triad in the Old Testament, of Ahab, Jezebel and Elijah, with the weak ruler, the she-devil at his side inspiring him for all evil, and the stern prophet who is the incarnate conscience for them both. He returns to it a second time, calling Herodias “the Jezebel to this Ahab” and adding that Elijah was not far off. JFB reaches the same place from the vocabulary of verse 20, comparing the case of Elijah with Ahab after the murder of Naboth (1 Kings 21:20), and again at the end of that verse: Herodias must have wrought upon Herod as Jezebel upon Ahab, that he should at length agree to what his awakened conscience long kept him from executing. ⚙ The structural correspondences are precise: a king who knows the prophet is righteous and is afraid of him, a queen who wants him dead and cannot manage it alone, a legal charge the king cannot answer, and a plot that succeeds through the court rather than the throne. Mark has already put John in Elijah's part; the crowd in verse 15 hands Elijah's name to Jesus instead.

1 Kings 21:20 · 1 Kings 19:2 · Malachi 4:5

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so no shared Strong's number is possible and no verbal link is claimed; the basis is a figural correspondence of persons and roles, named explicitly by Maclaren (Ahab, Jezebel, Elijah) and independently by JFB at verse 20 (Ahab and Naboth, Jezebel working on Ahab). Widely held rather than novel; the Verifier's candidate list supplies no lexical support for it and none is asserted.

“It is not lawful for thee”: John's charge is a citation of Leviticus structural / thematic: confirmed

John's sentence in verse 18 is built on the impersonal Οὐκ ἔξεστίν, the idiom of what the Law permits, and the noun that carries the charge is ἀδελφοῦ, a brother. JFB supplies the statute: it was not lawful because Herod's wife and Herodias's husband were both living, and further because the parties were within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, citing Leviticus 20:21, with Josephus (Antiquities 18.5.4) for the family relations. Gill says John told him plainly that what he had done was contrary to the law of God, and Benson that both parties were guilty of incest as well as adultery. ⚙ Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21 are the two texts that name taking a brother's wife as forbidden and as bearing a penalty; the prophet is not moralising at a king, he is reading him a statute.

Leviticus 18:16 · Leviticus 20:21

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek Gospel to Hebrew Torah): shared Strong's numbers are impossible, so this is not tiered verbal even though the Gospel clause functions as an appeal to a written statute. The recorded basis is JFB's explicit citation of Leviticus 20:21 at Mark 6:18, with Gill and Benson naming the same legal ground, plus the verbal field of ἔξεστιν (G1832, what is permitted) with ἀδελφοῦ (G80).

“Up to half my kingdom”: a Persian formula in a Galilean palace structural / thematic: confirmed

Cambridge makes the link and supplies the text: compare the words of Ahasuerus to Esther, “What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom” (Esther 5:3; Esther 7:2). ⚙ The formula is a royal extravagance offered at a banquet to a woman who has come in to please the king, and in both places the real petition is a life: in Esther the sparing of a people, here the destroying of a prophet. The inversion is the point. Herod, whom Mark alone calls king and who JFB says is king only by courtesy, offers half of a tetrarchy he does not own outright; Ahasuerus could have kept his word.

Esther 5:3 · Esther 5:6 · Esther 7:2

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so no shared Strong's number and no verbal tier, even though the Gospel clause reproduces a fixed court formula. Recorded basis: Cambridge's explicit comparison at Mark 6:23 quoting Esther 5:3 and 7:2, with the shared setting (royal banquet, a woman's petition, an irrevocable grant) as the structural link. The Greek side shows ἕως ἡμίσους τῆς βασιλείας (G2255, five verses).

The vow that cannot be taken back: Jephthah at the door structural / thematic: confirmed

Pulpit is blunt that Herod must have known well that he could not be bound by his oath in reference to a petition so unreasonable and so iniquitous, and yet he thought that the words of a king were law; Poole draws the same lesson, that a soul ignorant of the law of God could imagine an oath to be the bond of iniquity. JFB generalises it: men of no principle but troublesome conscience will stick at breaking a rash oath while yielding to the worst crimes. ⚙ Judges 11 is the canonical precedent for exactly this deformation of piety: a vow uttered in haste, a daughter who comes out to meet it, and a man who treats his own words as more sacred than a life. Herod's plural ὅρκους (Pulpit: the plural shows he repeated the promise once and again) and Jephthah's plea that he had opened his mouth to the LORD and could not go back are the same error.

Judges 11:30 · Judges 11:35

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): no shared Strong's lexeme is possible, so no verbal claim. Basis is a shared motif with an unusually exact structure (rash oath at a moment of triumph, a daughter as its occasion, an innocent life taken to keep the word), and the commentators' own framing of Herod's oath as a self-imposed bond (Poole, Pulpit, JFB). No commentator in this brief names Jephthah, so the pairing is our own ⚙ structural proposal, not a sourced attribution.

ἀποκεφαλίζω: the four verses in the New Testament where anyone is beheaded verbal / quotation: confirmed

The verb ἀποκεφαλίζω (G607, to decapitate) occurs in only four verses of the New Testament, and two of them are in this unit: Herod's own confession in verse 16 and the soldier's act in verse 27. The Verifier's candidates place Matthew 14:10 alongside, with the same rare verb and the name of John, and Matthew 14:3, 14:6, 14:8 and 14:11 supply the parallel account throughout (including κοράσιον, G2877, in only seven verses). ⚙ What the shared rare verb exposes is the two subjects: in verse 16 Herod says I beheaded, in verse 27 another man does the beheading. Mark lets the same verb carry both, which is his verdict on delegated murder.

Matthew 14:10 · Matthew 14:3 · Matthew 14:11

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G607 ἀποκεφαλίζω, rare at four verses, with G2491 Ἰωάννης (132 vv) at Matthew 14:10; also G2264 Ἡρώδης (40 vv) with G2491 at Matthew 14:3, and G2877 κοράσιον (rare, seven verses) with G1325 δίδωμι at Matthew 14:11. All refs are New Testament, so this is a Greek to Greek verbal link. It is a synoptic parallel, not a quotation of one by the other; the tier records the confirmed verbal contact, and no direction of dependence is claimed.

ἐνέχω: the three places the New Testament speaks of being held fast verbal / quotation: confirmed

Herodias's grudge is ἐνεῖχεν (G1758), a verb in only three verses of the New Testament. Cambridge already traces one of the other two, Luke 11:53, where scribes and Pharisees “urge Him vehemently,” and adds Genesis 49:23 in the Greek of Joseph's archers. The third is Galatians 5:1, where Paul warns against being held fast in a yoke of bondage. ⚙ Read together, the rare verb describes a grip: in Luke the grip of hostile men on Christ, in Galatians the grip of slavery on the freed, here the grip of a woman's wrath on a prophet's life. Note who is actually held. Mark's syntax leaves her object unnamed, and Herodias, who holds the grudge, is the one the narrative shows to be captive to it.

Luke 11:53 · Galatians 5:1

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G1758 ἐνέχω, rare at three verses total, at Luke 11:53 (with G1831 ἐξέρχομαι) and Galatians 5:1. All three refs are New Testament, so this is a Greek to Greek verbal link. Confirmed as verbal on the rarity of the lexeme only; no quotation, allusion or literary dependence is claimed between these passages.

πίναξ: the platter in Herod's hall and the platter in the Pharisee's house structural / thematic: confirmed

πίναξ (G4094, a plate or platter) is a rare word, in five verses, and the Verifier pairs this unit's dish with Luke 11:39, where the Lord tells the Pharisees that they cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter while within they are full of extortion and wickedness. ⚙ The verbal contact is real and the irony is Mark's own doing, not ours to overstate: the same domestic object names religious hypocrisy in one place and a prophet's head in another. Herod's platter is immaculate on the outside and carries murder, which is precisely the charge the Lord lays against the cleansers of platters.

Luke 11:39

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G4094 πίναξ (rare, five verses), both refs New Testament, so a genuine Greek to Greek verbal contact exists. Deliberately tiered structural rather than verbal because the shared word is a common household object and no literary relationship, quotation or allusion between Mark 6 and Luke 11 is claimed; the connection offered is thematic (an outwardly clean vessel carrying inward wickedness) and is our ⚙ reading.

εὔκαιρος: the well-timed day, and the other one structural / thematic: confirmed

The adjective εὔκαιρος (G2121, well-timed, opportune) occurs in only two verses of the whole New Testament. Here it dates an assassination: Gill and Cambridge both read the “convenient day” as convenient for Herodias's designs. The other is Hebrews 4:16, where the same adjective describes the help found at the throne of grace in time of need. ⚙ Two thrones, two well-timed days. At one, a girl asks and a king cannot refuse, and a righteous man dies. At the other, a sinner asks and finds mercy, because the one who sits there was himself handed over. The contrast is ours, offered as a reading, but the rare word that makes it possible is the text's.

Hebrews 4:16

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G2121 εὔκαιρος, the rarest shared lexeme in the candidate list at two verses total, both refs New Testament, so a real Greek to Greek verbal contact. Deliberately under-tiered as structural rather than verbal: the contact is a single ordinary adjective with no quotation, allusion or dependence between Mark 6 and Hebrews 4, and the antithesis drawn is our own ⚙ thematic reading.

“Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they wished”: the provenance problem flagged: verify source

Mark himself returns to this martyrdom at Mark 9:13, where the Lord says that Elijah has indeed come, that they did to him whatever they wished, and that this happened as it is written of him. ⚙ That last clause is the difficulty. Malachi 4:5-6 and Malachi 3:1 promise Elijah's coming and Mark has plainly read John in that light, but no Old Testament text states that the returning Elijah would be treated so. Commentators have proposed 1 Kings 19, the Maccabean literature, and a general typology of the prophets, and no proposal commands agreement. Our voices in this brief do not address it at all: Cambridge stops at Matthew 14:12 and the eulogy of Luke 7:27-28. We therefore record the connection and flag it rather than resolve it.

Mark 9:13 · Malachi 4:5 · Malachi 3:1

basis: Two distinct problems, both unresolved here. (1) The Malachi refs are Hebrew against Greek, so no shared Strong's lexeme and no verbal tier is available. (2) The scriptural provenance of Mark 9:13's “as it is written of him,” applied to the forerunner's suffering, is genuinely disputed and no text in this brief identifies it; none of the eleven commentators supplied addresses Mark 9:13 at all. The thread is offered as a real intertextual claim by Mark that the reader should check against a source, not as a confirmed link.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The forerunner's passion rehearses the Passion ancient/widely-held

⚙ Read as narrative, this is the only death Mark reports at length before the death of Jesus, and the vocabulary of its close is burial vocabulary: the disciples ἦραν (lifted) the πτῶμα (the fallen body) and ἔθηκαν (laid) it in a μνημεῖον (a memorial, a tomb). The pattern of the two accounts runs parallel at point after point: a ruler who knows the man is righteous (Herod knew him δίκαιον καὶ ἅγιον, as Pilate would know), a ruler who would rather not do it, a crowd or a company whose opinion decides the matter, a death ordered to save face, and friends who come for the body because no one else will. Pulpit reports from Josephus that the remains were cast out of the prison and left neglected, which makes the disciples' act pure devotion. JFB draws exactly this line and we follow him: one reason the Lord might not have been unwilling that a small body of John's disciples cling to their master to the last was to provide attached friends who should do for his precious body, on a small scale, what was afterwards to be done for His own. Cambridge adds from Matthew 14:12 that they went and told Jesus, of the death of His great Forerunner over whom He had pronounced so remarkable a eulogy. Pulpit hears John's own presentiment in the words about increase and decrease.

Mark 15:45 · Matthew 14:12 · Luke 7:27

A counterfeit resurrection, and the powers that were really at work novel

⚙ Mark has arranged this passage so that the language of resurrection is heard first from the wrong mouth. The crowd's ἐγήγερται is a perfect: raised and standing raised, the very form of the Easter announcement. Herod's ἠγέρθη is the bare event with an unnamed agent. And the explanation attached to it, that δυνάμεις ἐνεργοῦσιν ἐν αὐτῷ, is true of Jesus and false in its cause: the powers are indeed at work, and not because a beheaded prophet has come back. JFB calls the murdered prophet a specter haunting Herod's guilty breast, and Cambridge says the guilty conscience triumphed over Herod's professed disbelief in any resurrection; Gill notes that Herod's conscience worked on him until he firmly believed it. ⚙ Our reading, offered as a reading and marked novel where it goes beyond our voices, is that the narrative therefore sets conscience and gospel side by side and distinguishes them. A guilty conscience can manufacture a risen man; it produced one here, and the man it produced was a terror rather than a saviour. Only God raises the dead, and when Mark reaches that announcement it is made at an empty tomb, not at a banquet, and its first word to frightened hearers is not accusation but reassurance.

Mark 16:6 · Luke 9:9 · Mark 8:15

Herod hears gladly and keeps his sin: the verdict passed on this king by this King ancient/widely-held

⚙ The unit's most searching christological point is not about John but about the hearer. Herod feared John, kept him safe, heard him ἡδέως, and on the better text was ἠπόρει, a man with no way out. Geneva's marginal verdict is that the tyrant was content to hear sentence pronounced against himself, but the seed fell upon stony places, which reads Herod straight into the parable of Mark 4. Cambridge's antithesis, that he did many things but not the thing, and Barnes's, that he attempted a compromise with his conscience, say the same in different words, and both (as we note at verse 20) rest on the older reading of the clause. Pulpit adds that this is the same Herod who later set Jesus at nought and mocked him when Pilate sent him over. ⚙ So Mark's Gospel gives this man two hearings of the word of God, one from the forerunner and one from the Lord in person, and he does nothing with either. The judgment on gladly hearing while keeping one's sin is pronounced in advance by the very man Herod will one day be able to mock in silence, for in Luke's account Jesus answers him nothing at all.

Mark 4:16 · Luke 23:8 · Luke 23:9

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)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • 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)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

⚙ Honesty notes specific to this unit.

Text. Verse 20 carries a real variant and our two most quotable voices are on the far side of it. The interlinear supplied in the brief reads πολλὰ ἠπόρει (“he was much perplexed,” from ἀπορέω, to have no way out), and Ellicott states that the better manuscripts give that reading; Pulpit lays out both and notes the agreement with Luke's διηπόρει. But Barnes, Gill, Geneva and Cambridge all expound the Received πολλὰ ἐποίει, “he did many things,” and Cambridge's famous line about doing many things but not “the thing” depends on it. We have kept both voices and attached an editorial note to each rather than quietly dropping them. Verse 24 has a smaller variant of the same kind: Pulpit prefers the middle subjunctive αἰτήσωμαι (“what should I ask for myself?”) over αἰτήσομαι, and the interlinear agrees with him.

Title. Mark alone calls Antipas king. Gill, Cambridge, Pulpit and JFB all note that he was in strict fact tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, JFB adding that “king” here is courtesy only. We have made interpretive use of that gap, at verse 23 in particular, and the reader should know it is a gap our voices identified, not one we invented.

Sources external to Scripture. Several load-bearing details in this unit come from Josephus, not from Mark: the prison as the fortress of Machaerus (JFB, Pulpit, Cambridge, Antiquities 18.5.2), the dancer's name Salome (JFB, Geneva, Cambridge, Antiquities 18.5.4), the family relationships, the war with Aretas, and the popular reading of Herod's later defeat as retribution (Cambridge). These are ancient historical testimony, valuable and not inspired; Mark names none of them.

Legend, marked as such. Pulpit reports two stories we have handled with care. One is from Jerome, that Herodias thrust a bodkin through the tongue of the severed head as Fulvia was said to have done to Cicero's; the other, from Nicephorus, that Salome later died when her head was severed by broken ice. Both are late, neither is in any Gospel, and we cite the first only with a flag and do not build on either. Ellicott's elaborate reconstruction from the Roman satirist Persius, imagining a later birthday feast at Lugdunum, he himself calls a conjecture, and we have not used it as evidence.

Voices and their limits. Three of the eleven commentators supplied add little here by their own choice: Barnes refers the reader to his notes on Matthew 14 for the narrative, Poole does the same for Matthew and then comments on the whole passage at verse 14 only, and Henry's concise note covers verses 14 to 29 in one paragraph repeated at every verse. This is why several verses in this unit carry fewer voices than others; it reflects the sources, not neglect. JFB's aside at verse 24 that abandoned women are more shameless and heartless than men is his own nineteenth-century moralising, not Mark's judgment, and we have not quoted it. Cambridge's vivid paragraph at verse 22 about a Maccabaean princess degrading herself into a scenic dancer is Cambridge quoting Farrar's Life of Christ, and the voice note says so. Poole's printed “dares to fell the greatest persons” is quoted as printed; it is almost certainly a misprint for “tell.”

What our threads claim and do not. No thread in this unit is a formal Old Testament quotation, because Mark makes none here. The Elijah, Esther, Jephthah and Leviticus links are all cross-Testament and therefore cannot rest on shared Strong's numbers; each is tiered structural or typological, with the reason stated in its own basis. Four threads rest on genuine Greek to Greek rare-lexeme contact confirmed by the Verifier (ἀποκεφαλίζω, ἐνέχω, πίναξ, εὔκαιρος); of these we have tiered only two verbal and deliberately under-tiered the other two, because a shared common noun or adjective is not evidence of literary dependence. The Jephthah pairing is our own structural proposal and no commentator in this brief names it. The Mark 9:13 thread is flagged because the provenance of “as it is written of him” is genuinely disputed and none of our sources addresses it.

What remains uncertain. Whether Herod Antipas was a Sadducee (Cambridge assumes it, Maclaren says there is no proof, Gill treats it as a thing he may have abandoned); whether the birthday was natal or accession (Gill and Cambridge raise both, Cambridge doubting Wieseler's accession reading); whether the banquet and the prison stood in the same fortress (Pulpit offers it as a possibility, not a fact); and how long John lay in prison (JFB guesses more than twelve months, which is a guess).

✦ = 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)