Mark 10:6
in Mark 10However, from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
But from the beginning of the creation, Male and female made he them.
KJV
But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
⋯
This verse in Mark 10
Commentary
11 notes on this verseI will call your attention to the law of monogamy. The very origin of the human race sanctions it. It is abundantly clear that God ordained it at the beginning as a pattern for posterity. For after he had made Adam, and had foreseen the necessity of providing a helpmate for him, he borrowed from his loins one alone. One woman only did he design for man.
This site's exposition
because of your hardness of heart
on Mark 10:5-9
Jesus calls the provision a concession, written because of your hardness of heart, and reaches past Moses to creation. There God made them male and female and the two will become one flesh, so what God has joined together, let man not separate.
This site's exposition
God made them male and female
Augustine notes that Jesus answers them from Moses' own books. The same witness refutes those who later denied that God made and joined male and female. Tertullian adds that one man and one woman at the beginning set the pattern for all who followed.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
(Cat. in Marc. Oxon.) Or else, it is said, For the hardness of your hearts, because it is possible for a soul purged from desires and from anger to bear the worst of women; but if those passions have a redoubled force over the mind, many evils will arise from hatred in marriage. (Chrys. ubi sup.). Thus then, He saves Moses, who had given the law, from their accusation, and turns the whole upon their head. But since what He had said was grievous to them, He at once brings back the discourse to the old law, saying, But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.
(cont. Faust. xix. 29) Behold the Jews are convinced out of the books of Moses, that a wife is not to be put away, while they fancied that in putting her away, they were doing the will of Moses. In like manner from this place, from the witness of Christ Himself, we know this, that God made and joined male and female, for denying which the Manichees are condemned, resisting now not the books of Moses, but the Gospel of Christ.
The Medieval Church3 voices
But from the beginning it was not so: God joins two persons in the bond of marriage so that they become one, even leaving their own parents. Note that the Lord says: God does not permit polygamy, so that one wife could be divorced and …
(ubi sup.) He says not male and females, which the sense would have required had it referred to the divorce of former wives, but male and female, so that they might be bound by the tie of one wife.
From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. This is written in the beginning of Genesis. By saying male and female, He showed that second marriages are to be avoided. For He did not say male and females, as was sought from …
3 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
But from the beginning of the creation,.... Of the world, or of man: מתחלת ברייתו של עולם, "from the beginning of the creation of the world", is a way of speaking often used by the Jews (r): the phrase "of the creation" is left out in the Syriac and Persic versions; and so it was in Beza's most ancient copy, and it is only read, "from the beginning", as in Mat 19:4,8; see Gill on Mat 19:4, See Gill on Mat 19:
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
J.C. Ryle1816–1900
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark (lightly modernized text, Grace Gems edition) (1857)
proposed
The opening verse of this passage shows us the patient perseverance of our Lord Jesus Christ as a teacher . We are told that "Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them." Wherever our Lord went, He was always about His Father's business, preaching, teaching, and laboring to do good to souls. He threw away no opportunity. In the whole history of His earthly ministry, we never read of an idle day. Of Him it may be truly said, that He "sowed beside all waters," and that "in the morning He sowed his seed, and in the evening withheld not His hand." (Isaiah 32:20. Eccles. 11:6.) And yet our Lord knew the hearts of all men. He knew perfectly well that the great proportion of His hearers were hardened and unbelieving. He knew, as He spoke, that most of His words fell to the ground uncared for and unheeded, and that so far as concerned the salvation of souls, most of His labor was in vain. He knew all this, and yet He labored on. Let us see in this fact a standing pattern to all who try to do good to others, whatever their office may be. Let it be remembered by every minister and every missionary — by every schoolmaster and every Sunday-school teacher — by every district visitor and every lay agent — by every head of a house who has family prayers — and by every caretaker who has the charge of children. Let all such remember Christ's example, and resolve to do likewise. We are not to give up teaching, because we see no good done. We are not to relax our exertions, because we see no fruit of our toil. We are to work on steadily, keeping before us the great principle, that duty is ours, and results are God's. There must be ploughmen and sowers as well as reapers and binders of sheaves.
A commentator
J.C. Ryle1816–1900
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark (lightly modernized text, Grace Gems edition) (1857)
proposed
The opening verse of this passage shows us the patient perseverance of our Lord Jesus Christ as a teacher . We are told that "Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them." Wherever our Lord went, He was always about His Father's business, preaching, teaching, and laboring to do good to souls. He threw away no opportunity. In the whole history of His earthly ministry, we never read of an idle day.
How the passage was read
On Mark 10:2-12On Mark 10:2-12
The divorce question, translated for Rome
The test question “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?” lands in Perea, Herod Antipas's territory, where John the Baptist had just died for saying Antipas's marriage to Herodias was unlawful. Behind the question stands the recorded dispute of the Pharisaic schools over Deuteronomy 24:1: the house of Shammai allowing divorce only for unchastity, the house of Hillel for far less (“even if she spoiled his dish,” Mishnah Gittin 9:10). This site's Matthew 19 note walks that dispute; Jesus answers from creation, behind Moses.
Mark alone adds: “and if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery” (10:12). Under Jewish law of the period, the get (bill of divorce) ran from husband to wife; a wife initiating divorce was Roman law's provision, and famously what Herodias had done to her first husband. Mark, writing for Roman readers, translates the ruling into their legal world, one more instance of the New Testament doing for its first readers what this layer does for the modern one.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
The words behind it
9 Greek wordsEvery Greek word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Greek | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ἀπὸ | apo | From | G575 → | 640 times |
| δὲ | de | however | G1161 → | 2765 times |
| ἀρχῆς | arches | [the] beginning | G746 → | 55 times |
| κτίσεως | ktiseos | of creation | G2937 → | |
| ἄρσεν | arsen | Male | G730 → | |
| καὶ | kai | and | G2532 → | 9120 times |
| θῆλυ | thelu | female | G2338 → | |
| ἐποίησεν | epoiesen | He made | G4160 → | 569 times |
| αὐτούς | autous | them’ | G846 → | 5565 times |
ἀπὸFrom
apoG575 →640 times
δὲhowever
deG1161 →2765 times
ἀρχῆς[the] beginning
archesG746 →55 times
κτίσεωςof creation
ktiseosG2937 →
ἄρσενMale
arsenG730 →
καὶand
kaiG2532 →9120 times
θῆλυfemale
theluG2338 →
ἐποίησενHe made
epoiesenG4160 →569 times
αὐτούςthem’
autousG846 →5565 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Genesis 1:1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
it leads to
- John 1:1–3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
- Hebrews 11:3
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
- Isaiah 45:18
For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens—He is God; He formed the earth and fashioned it; He established it; He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be…
- Revelation 4:11
“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and came to be.”
- Hebrews 1:10
And: “In the beginning, O Lord, You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
- John 1:1–3
Through
Genesis 1:27So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
it leads to
- Matthew 19:4
Jesus answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’
- Ephesians 2:10
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.
- Genesis 5:1–2
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in His own likeness.
- Matthew 19:4
Where this verse is studied
By subject
Creation34 verses
On this page
Studies27
On this verse
On this chapter
About Mark
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Augustine of Hippo, Catena Aurea by Aquinas; Bede, Catena Aurea by Aquinas; Bede, On the Gospel of Mark; J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark (lightly modernized text, Grace Gems edition); John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament; Pseudo-Chrysostom, Catena Aurea by Aquinas; Tertullian, EXHORTATION TO CHASTITY 5 and Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on Mark.