Mark 6:28

Greek (Tischendorf 8th ed.)

English Translation

and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the young lady; and the young lady gave it to her mother.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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ἀπεκεφάλισεν

apokephalízō

G607

“to behead”

Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular

Appears 4× in the Greek New Testament
First appears at Matthew 14:10

Full Thayer's Definition

Origin: from G575 and G2776

TDNT: None

1. to cut off the head, behead, decapitate

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 →

27: words
14: distinct lemmas
Gospels: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is ἀπεκεφάλισεν to behead G607 — appearing just 4 times in the whole Greek New Testament.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

ἀπεκεφάλισεν to behead G607 occurs in 4 verses of the Greek New Testament. Also found in:

Repetition

Words recur within this verse:

ἔδωκεν to give G1325 ×2
κορασίῳ girl G2877 ×2
αὐτὸν he G846 ×5
τῇ the G3588 ×5
καὶ and G2532 ×4

Commentary

Notes on Mark 6:28 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 brought his head in a charger,.... In a large dish, to Herod, who

gave it to the damsel; the daughter of Herodias, as she had requested:

and the damsel gave it to her mother; who had instigated her to it; See Gill on Mat 14:11.

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

28 And brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother.

Ver. 28. {See Trapp on "Mat 14:11"}

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

28. ἔδωκεν αὐτὴν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτῆς. We may compare Fulvia with the head of Cicero. Stories about the discovery of the Baptist’s head and its removal to Constantinople (Sozomen H. E. vii. 21) and its subsequent removal to Amiens, may be disregarded (Dict. of Chr. Ant. I. p. 883). The history of the head ends here; but it was necessary to record the burial of the body in order to complete the explanation of the fear of Antipas, οὗτος ἠγέρθη (Mar 6:16).

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

28. Καὶ ἀπελθὼν—And having gone out.

Καὶ, instead of ὁ δὲ, Tisch. Treg. WH. RV. BCL Δ 1, 28, 124, most mss. Lat. Vet. Memph. ed. Pesh.

ἀπεκεφάλισεν—beheaded, a later Greek word. φυλακῇ—prison. Josephus tells us that John was beheaded in the castle of Machærus, and as this was one of Herod’s favorite resorts, it may well be that the feast, which was the occasion of the tragedy, took place there. And the whole story is framed on the supposition that the prison was near enough to the banquet hall to have the head brought immediately. Machærus was a ridge a mile long, over-looking a deep ravine, at one end of which Herod had built a great palace, while at the other end was the citadel in which John was confined. It was situated at the southern end of Peræa, and east of the northern end of the Dead Sea. Some have supposed that Tiberias was the scene of both the feast and the execution, and others that the feast was there, and the execution at Machærus. But there does not seem to be any sufficient reason for setting aside Josephus’ testimony about the beheading of John, and in that case the narrative favors the supposition that the feast was in the same place. It is a piece of poetic justice that Aretas, the father of Herod’s rejected wife, made war upon his faithless son-in-law, and defeated him, so that Herod was saved only by the intervention of the Roman Emperor.

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 27 words (14 distinct Greek lemmas). Its most distinctive word is apokephalízō (“to behead”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to behead” (apokephalízō) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Matthew 14:10, which shares the word «to behead», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to give” (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 6 words in this verse.
“to give” occurs 2× in this single verse.
14 distinct Greek lemmas span 27 words in this verse.