Mark 3:25

Greek (Tischendorf 8th ed.)

English Translation

If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

μερισθῇ

merízō

G3307

“to divide”

Verb, Aorist, Passive, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular

Appears 14× in the Greek New Testament
First appears at Matthew 12:25

Full Thayer's Definition

Origin: from G3313

TDNT: None

1. to divide a. to separate into parts, cut into pieces 1. to divide into parties, i.e. be split into factions b. to distribute 1. a thing among people 2. bestow, impart

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

12: words
11: distinct lemmas
Gospels: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is μερισθῇ to divide G3307 — appearing just 14 times in the whole Greek New Testament.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

μερισθῇ to divide G3307 occurs in 13 verses of the Greek New Testament. Also found in:

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse:

οἰκία house G3614 ×2

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Mark 3:25 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

James 3:16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed.
Galatians 5:15 But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don't consume one another.
Psalms 133:1 See how good and how pleasant it is For brothers to live together in unity!
Genesis 37:4 His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him, and couldn't speak peaceably to him.
Genesis 13:7–8 There was a strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite lived then in the land.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Commentary

Notes on Mark 3:25 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

John Gill's Exposition

And if Satan rise up against himself,.... As he must do in such a case as this, if devils are cast out by Beelzebub, the prince of devils:

and be divided; one devil against another, as the above calumny supposes;

he cannot stand, but hath an end: his kingdom cannot stand long, but must soon come to an end; his power and authority will soon be destroyed, both over his own species, and among men; See Gill on Mat 12:26.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

25 And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

Ver. 25. {See Trapp on "Mat 12:25"} {See Trapp on "Mat 12:26"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges

25. δυνήσεται ([551][552][553][554][555]) rather than δύναται ([556][557][558][559]).

[551] Codex Sinaiticus. 4th cent. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the Monastery of St Katharine on Mount Sinai. Now at St Petersburg. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1911.

[552] Codex Vaticanus. 4th cent., but perhaps a little later than א. In the Vatican Library almost since its foundation by Pope Nicolas V., and one of its greatest treasures. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1889.

[553] Codex Ephraemi. 5th cent. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out, and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it; but a great deal of the original writing has been recovered; of Mark we have Mar 1:17 to Mar 6:31, Mar 8:5 to Mar 12:29, Mar 13:19 to Mar 16:20. In the National Library at Paris.

[554] Codex Regius. 8th cent. An important witness. At Paris. Contains Mar 1:1 to Mar 10:15; Mar 10:30 to Mar 15:1; Mar 15:20 to Mar 16:20, but the shorter ending is inserted between Mar 16:8 and Mar 16:9, showing that the scribe preferred it to the longer one.

[555] Codex Sangallensis. 9th or 10th cent. Contains the Gospels nearly complete, with an interlinear Latin translation. The text of Mark is specially good, agreeing often with CL. At St Gall.

[556] Codex Alexandrinus. 5th cent. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to King Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. The whole Gospel. Photographic facsimile, 1879.

[557] Codex Bezae. 6th cent. Has a Latin translation (d) side by side with the Greek text, and the two do not quite always agree. Presented by Beza to the University Library of Cambridge in 1581. Remarkable for its frequent divergences from other texts. Contains Mark, except Mar 16:15-20, which has been added by a later hand. Photographic facsimile, 1899.

[558] Codex Oxoniensis. 9th cent. Contains Mark, except Mar 3:35 to Mar 6:20.

[559] Codex Petropolitanus. 9th cent. Gospels almost complete. Mar 16:18-20 is in a later hand.

25. οἰκία. Household or family rather than “house.” Lk. has οἶκος and means a building. Cf. Cic. Laelius vii. 23.

οὐ δυνήσεται. See crit. note. Mt. has οὐ σταθήσεται, Lk. has πίπτει. These striking illustrations would cause these Sayings to be easily remembered.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

International Critical Commentary

25. The second analogy is that of a house. The word is used by metonymy for the family inhabiting a house. Here, too, division ends in destruction. οὐ δυνήσεται—will not be able. The form of the conditional statement in this case belongs to the future, and not to a general condition.

δυνήσεται, instead of δύναται, Tisch. Treg. WH. RV. א BCL Δ mss. of Lat. Vet. and of Vulg. δύναται is an evident emendation, to correspond to v. 24.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Mark, in the Gospels, opens this verse with 12 words (11 distinct Greek lemmas). Its most distinctive word is merízō (“to divide”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to divide” (merízō) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Matthew 12:25, which shares the word «to divide», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “house” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
Compare how John Gill's Exposition and Trapp's Complete Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 5 words in this verse.
“house” occurs 2× in this single verse.
11 distinct Greek lemmas span 12 words in this verse.