As I explained last week, the Hebrew letter quph
matches up with three books in the Bible: Psalms, Mark, and 2nd John. Mark's gospel is unique because it emphasizes Jesus’ actions more than His
teachings, moving quickly from one episode to another. Thus we get our
connection to the quph word qal (swift).
Mark describes Jesus’ journeys through Galilee,
the surrounding areas, and then to Judea at a rapid pace. In fact, the
swiftness is revealed in the actually telling of the events. An example of this
unique swiftness presents itself early on in chapter 1, verses 10 – 14 (this is
from Young’s Literal Translation so you can see the fast pace exactly as it was
written. Although it is divided into 5 verses, notice the punctuation - just two sentences:
9
And it came to pass in those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and
was baptized by John at the Jordan;
10
and immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens dividing, and
the Spirit as a dove coming down upon him;
11
and a voice came out of the heavens, `Thou art My Son -- the Beloved, in
whom I did delight.'
12
And immediately doth the Spirit put him forth to the wilderness, 13
and he was there in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by the
Adversary, and he was with the beasts, and the messengers were
ministering to him.
Whew!
There are nearly identical scenes recorded in
Matthew, Mark, and Luke that tell of the
healing of the demon-possessed man, the feeding of the 5000, the healings at
Gennesaret, the healing of the boy with an evil spirit, and the rich young man, which all are told in Mark with the addition of the word ran to portray that “swiftness”.
