they will take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will in no way hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Parallel Translations
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they will take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will in no way hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
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and shall kyll serpentes. And yf they drinke eny dedly thinge that shall not hurte the. They shall laye their hondes on the sicke and they shall recover.
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And shall take away serpents, and if they shall drinke any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay their handes on the sicke, and they shall recouer.
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Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (21)
Passages linked to Mark 16:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Luke 10:19 Behold, I give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will in any way hurt you.
- James 5:14-15 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
- Acts 28:3-6 But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand. When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped from the sea, yet Justice has not allowed to live.” However he shook off the creature into the fire, and wasn’t harmed. But they expected that he would have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly, but when they watched for a long time and saw nothing bad happen to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.
- Acts 19:12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out.
- Acts 4:30 while you stretch out your hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy Servant Jesus.”
- Acts 28:8-9 The father of Publius lay sick of fever and dysentery. Paul entered in to him, prayed, and laying his hands on him, healed him. Then when this was done, the rest also who had diseases in the island came and were cured.
- Mark 5:23 and begged him much, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Please come and lay your hands on her, that she may be made healthy, and live.”
- Acts 3:16 By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which is through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
- Psalms 91:13 You will tread on the lion and cobra. You will trample the young lion and the serpent underfoot.
- Acts 3:12 When Peter saw it, he responded to the people, “You men of Israel, why do you marvel at this man? Why do you fasten your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk?
- Acts 9:34 Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed!” Immediately he arose.
- Romans 16:20 And the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
- Acts 3:6-8 But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have, that I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!” He took him by the right hand and raised him up. Immediately his feet and his ankle bones received strength. Leaping up, he stood and began to walk. He entered with them into the temple, walking, leaping, and praising God.
- Acts 5:15-16 They even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mattresses, so that as Peter came by, at the least his shadow might overshadow some of them. The multitude also came together from the cities around Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits: and they were all healed.
- Acts 9:17-18 Ananias departed and entered into the house. Laying his hands on him, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he received his sight. He arose and was baptized.
- Acts 9:40-42 Peter sent them all out, and knelt down and prayed. Turning to the body, he said, “Tabitha, get up!” She opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand, and raised her up. Calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. This became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.
- 2 Kings 4:39-41 One went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered a lap full of wild gourds from it, and came and cut them up into the pot of stew; for they didn’t recognize them. So they poured out for the men to eat. As they were eating some of the stew, they cried out, and said, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it. But he said, “Then bring meal.” He threw it into the pot; and he said, “Serve it to the people, that they may eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
- 1 Corinthians 12:9 to another faith, by the same Spirit; and to another gifts of healings, by the same Spirit;
- Genesis 3:15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
- Acts 4:10 may it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands here before you whole in him.
- Acts 4:22 For the man on whom this miracle of healing was performed was more than forty years old.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (9 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they…
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
Ver. 18. It shall not hurt them] No more shall the deadly poison of sin hurt those that have drunk it, if they belong to God, provided that they cast it up again quickly by confession, and meddle no more with such a mischief.
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.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain So then, after the Lord,.... The Vulgate Latin and…
So then, after the Lord,.... The Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions add, "Jesus"; and the Ethiopic version reads, "our Lord, the Lord Jesus"; and both Syriac and Persic read, "our Lord"; which is common in these versions, where the word "Lord" is used:
had spoken unto them; the disciples, the above words, which commissioned them where to go, what to do, and what to say; and what should follow them, for the confirmation of their mission and doctrine:
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he was received up into heaven; in a cloud, angels attending him, and devils led captive by him, and with a welcome into his Father's presence:
and sat on the right hand of God; the Ethiopic version adds, "his own Father", and which is an evidence of his having done his work, and that to full satisfaction; and is an honour never conferred on angels, or any mere creature; and is a peculiar dignity conferred on the human nature of Christ, in union with his divine person; and here he will remain, till his second coming.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain If they drink any deadly thing - But not…
If they drink any deadly thing - But not by their own choice. God never calls us to try any such experiments.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 18. Take up serpents] Several MSS. add εν…
Verse 18. Take up serpents] Several MSS. add εν ταις χερσιν, in their hands - shall be enabled to give, when such a proof may be serviceable to the cause of truth, this evidence of their being continually under the power and protection of God, and that all nature is subject to him. This also was literally fulfilled in the case of Paul, Ac 28:5.
If they drink any deadly thing] θανασιμον (φαρμακον) being understood-if they should through mistake, or accident, drink any poisonous matter, their constant preserver will take care that it shall not injure them. See a similar promise, Isa 43:2.
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They shall lay hands on the sick] And I will convey a healing power by their hands, so that the sick shall recover, and men shall see that these are sent and acknowledged by the Most High. Several instances of this kind are found in the Acts of the Apostles.
That the apostles of our Lord should not lose their lives by poison is most fully asserted in this verse, and there is neither record nor tradition to disprove this. But it is worthy of remark, that Mohammed, who styled himself THE APOSTLE OF GOD, lost his life by poison; and had he been a true apostle of God, he could not have fallen by it. Al Kodai, Abul Feda, and Al Janabi, give the following account.
When Mohammed, in the seventh year of the Hejra, A. D. 628, had taken the city of Kheebar, from the Arab Jews, he took up his lodgings at the house of Hareth, the father of Marhab the Jewish general, who had been slain at the taking of the city by Alee, the son-in-law of Mohammed. Zeenab the daughter of Hareth, who was appointed to dress the prophet's dinner, to avenge the fall of her people, and the death of her brother, put poison in a roasted lamb which was provided for the occasion. Bashar, one of his companions, falling on too hastily, fell dead on the spot. Mohammed had only chewed one mouthful, but had not swallowed it: though, on perceiving that it was poisoned, he immediately spat it out, yet he had swallowed a sufficiency of the juice to lay the foundation of his death; though this did not take place till about three years after: but that it was the cause of his death then, his dying words related by Al Janabi, and others, sufficiently testify. When the mother of Bashar came to see him in his dying agonies, he thus addressed her: "O mother of Bashar, I now feel the veins of my heart bursting through the poison of that morsel which I ate with thy son at Kheebar."
Abul Feda, Ebnol Athir, and Ebn Phares say, that the prophet acknowledged on his death-bed, that the poison which he had taken at Kheebar had tormented him from that time until then, notwithstanding blisters were applied to his shoulders, and every thing done in the beginning to prevent its effects. Al Kodai and Al Janabi relate, that when Zeenab was questioned why she did this, she answered to this effect: "I said in my heart, If he be a king, we shall hereby be freed from his tyranny; and if he be a prophet, he will easily perceive it, and consequently receive no injury." To support his credit, he pretended that the lamb spoke to him, and said that it was infected with poison! See Elmakin, p. 8. It was therefore policy in him not to put Zeenab to death. It has pleased God that this fact should be acknowledged by the dying breath of this scourge of the earth; and that several of even the most partial Mohammedan historians should relate it! And, thus attested, it stands for the complete and everlasting refutation of his pretensions to the prophetic spirit and mission. Vide Specimen Hist. Arabum, a POCOCKIO, p. 189, 190. Le Coran traduit par SAVARY, vol. i; p. 135, and 212. See also, The Life of Mohammed by PRIDEAUX, 93, 101.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain They shall take up serpents - When it is…
They shall take up serpents - When it is necessary for the sake of establishing religion, they shall handle poisonous reptiles without injury, thus showing that God was with them to keep them from harm. This was literally fulfilled when Paul shook the viper from his hand. See Act 28:5-6.
Any deadly thing - Any poison usually causing death.
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Shall not hurt them - There is a similar promise in Isa 43:2.
They shall lay hands on the sick ... - See instances of this in the Acts of the Apostles, Act 3:6-7; Act 5:15, etc.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 18. They shall take up serpents — All the…
18. They shall take up serpents — All the miracles here specified, and more, were doubtless plentifully performed in the early Christian Church; but the scantiness of the historical record furnishes no narratives of some of them. Of the present miracle of taking up serpents but a single instance remains on record, namely, in Act_28:1-6.
Drink any deadly thing — There is a legend that this miracle occurred to the apostle John, but it is not sufficiently authentic. Hands on the sick… recover — Instances are alluded to in Act_3:6; Act_5:15, and Jas_5:14.
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As bodily ills are the shadow of the ills of the soul, so these miracles of external mercy are images of the spiritual and moral miracles that Christianity ever works. In all ages the regenerating Spirit casts out devilish passions from men’s souls. The young convert to the Gospel speaks with a new language. The powerful grace of God enables the faithful Christian to handle unharmed the evil things of this life, and perform its secular business, which bite other men and kill them. The cup of temptation and trial which poisons the soul of the unregenerate is drained by the faithful truster in Christ unhurt. And from all the ailments of which men sicken and die, the power of the resurrection shall completely heal them.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 18. they shall take up serpents] And so we…
18. they shall take up serpents] And so we read of St Paul shaking off the viper at Malta (Act_28:5). Comp. Luk_10:19.
and if they drink] As is related of St John that he drank the cup of hemlock which was intended to cause his death, and suffered no harm from it, and of Barsabas surnamed Justus (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iii. 39).
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they shall lay hands on the sick] As St Peter did on the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple (Act_3:7), and St Paul on Publius in the island of Malta (Act_28:8). “Gifts of healing” are mentioned both by this last Apostle (1Co_12:9) and by St James (Mar_5:14-15) as remaining in the Church.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (18) They shall take up serpents.—The instance of St.…
(18) They shall take up serpents.—The instance of St. Paul at Melita is the only recorded example of the kind (Act_28:1-6). Power over “serpents and scorpions” had, it will be remembered, been given before (Luk_10:19).
If they drink any deadly thing . . .—Of this there is no recorded instance in the New Testament, but it finds an illustration in the tradition of the poisoned cup which was offered to St. John.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain They shall take up serpents.
Mar_16:18
They shall take up serpents.
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The privileges of believers
It is to men who believe, through their belief, that privileges such as these are to be given. The essence and ground of the promised power is faith. That old word, Faith! That old thing, Faith! How men have stumbled over its definition, and bewildered and ensnarled themselves and those who heard them! God forbid that I should bewilder you today. I want to be as clear and simple as I can; and though I would be far from disparaging any of the subtler and more elaborate descriptions of what faith is, I am sure that we may give ourselves a definition which is true beyond all doubt, and which is full enough to answer all the need of definition which we shall meet today. Faith, then, personal faith, is this, the power by which one beings vitality, through love and obedience, becomes the vitality of another being. Simple enough that is, I am sure, for any man who will think. I believe in you, my friend; and your vitality, your character, your energy, the more I love and obey you, passes over into me. The saint believes in his pattern saint, the soldier believes in his brave captain, the scholar believes in his learned teacher. In every ease the vitality of the object of faith comes through love and obedience to the believer. Faith is not love nor obedience, but it works by both. A man may love me and yet not have faith in me. A man may obey me, and yet not have faith in me. Faith is a distinct relation between soul and soul; but it is recognizable by this result, that the life of one soul becomes the life of another soul through obedience and love. Now faith in Christ, what is it? Just in the same simple way, it is that power by which the vitality of Christ, through our love and obedience to Him, becomes our vitality. The triumph of the believing soul is this, that he does not live by himself; that into him is ever flowing, by a law which is both natural and supernatural, a law that is supernatural only because it is the consummation and transfiguration of the most natural of all laws-there is always flowing into him the vitality of the Christ whom he loves and obeys. His whole nature beats with the inflow of that Divine life. He lives, but Christ lives in Him. And then add one thing more. That this vitality of Christ, which comes into a man by faith, is not a strange and foreign thing. Christ is the Son of Man, the perfect Man, the Divine Man. Add this, and then we know that His vitality filling us is the perfection of human life filling humanity. They that believe are not men turned into something else than men by the mixture of a new and strange Divine ingredient. They are men in whom human life is perfect in proportion to the completeness of their faith through the Son of Man. They are men raised to the highest power. The man in whom Christ dwells by faith is the man in whom the Divine ideal of human life is perfect, or is steadily becoming perfect, by the entrance into him of the perfect life of the Man Christ Jesus, through obedience and love. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)
The promise to believers
These signs shall follow them that believe, them that have the complete human life by me-Christ says, If they drink, etc. Is that a prize? Is it wages which is offered for a certain meritorious act, which is called faith? Not so, surely! It is a consequence. It is a necessity. Safety and helpfulness. These come out of the full life of Christ in the soul of man as the inevitable fruits. Safety, so that what hurts other men shall not hurt him. Helpfulness, so that his brethren about him shall live by his life. These are the utterances of the vitality of him who is thoroughly alive. It is by life, by full, vigorous, emphatic existence that men are safe in this world, and that they save other men from death. Men everywhere are trying to be safe by stifling life; by living just as low as possible. Men everywhere are trying not to do one another harm, trying to spare each others souls by tender petting, by guarding them against any vigorous contact with life and thought. Not so, says the Bible. Only by the fulness of life does safety come. Only by the power of contact with life are sick and helpless souls made whole. None but the live man saves himself or quickens the dead to life, saves himself or saves his neighbour. It is a noble assertion. The whole Bible, from its first page to its last, is full of the assertion of the fundamental necessity of vitality; that the first thing which a man needs in order to live well, is to live. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)
The safety of faith
Let us consider the safety which Christ offers. It is a safety not by the avoidance of deadly things, but by the neutralizing of them through a higher and stronger power. There is no such idle promise as that if a man believes in Christ a wall shall be built around his soul, so that the things out of which souls make sin cannot come to Him. The Master knew the world too well for that. His own experience on the hill of His temptation was still fresh in His memory. He knew that life meant exposure, that sin must surely beat at every one of these hearts. Nay, that the things out of which sin is made, temptation, moral trial, must enter into every heart; and so He said not, I will lead you through secluded ways where none but sweet and healthy waters flow, but, Where I lead you, there will be the streams of poison. Only if you have the vitality which comes by faith in Me, your life shall be stronger than the poisons death. If you drink any deadly thing it shall not harm you….Only those temptations which we encounter on the way of duty, in the path of consecration, only those has our Lord promised us that we shall conquer. He sends us out to live and work for Him. The chances of sin which we meet while that Divine design of life, the life and work for Him, is clear before us, shall not hurt us. When we forget that design, our arm withers, our immunity is gone. It is only when we are about some higher task, only when they meet us as accidents in the service of Christ, that we have a right deliberately to encounter temptation and the chance to sin, and may claim the Lords promise of immunity. Think in how many places that law applies. Have I a right to read this sceptical book-this hook in which some able, witty man has gathered all his skill against my Christian faith? It is a book of poison. Have I a right to drink it? Who can say absolutely yes or no? Who does not feel that it depends upon what sort of life the reader brings to meet the poison? If in your soul there is a passionate desire for truth, if you do really love and serve Christ, and want to know Him better, that you may love and serve him more, if this book comes as a help to that part of a study by which you shall get nearer to the heart of the truth and Him, then if you drink that deadly thing it shall not harm you. Nay, you may rise up from the reading with a faith more deep. Whatever change your faith may undergo, it shall win a profounder life. But if there is no such earnestness, no such life as this, if it is mere curiosity, mere desire to be fine and liberal, mere defiance, a mere wantonness, then the poison has it all its own way; there is no vigorous life to meet it; and its death spreads through the nature till it finds the heart … And so it is everywhere with all exposure of the spiritual life. What took you there? What right had you to be there? These are the critical questions on which everything depends. If you are passing through temptation with your eye fixed on a pure, true life beyond it, temptation being only a necessary stage upon your way, so long as you keep that purpose, that resolution, that ideal, you shall be safe. If you are in temptation for temptations sake, with no purpose beyond it, you are lost. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)
The helpfulness of faith
Not only is the man of faith promised safety for himself, but that he shall be helpful to others too. These two things-safety and helpfulness-go together, not merely in this special promise of the Saviour, but in all life. So is the whole world bound into a whole, so does the good that comes to any man tend to diffuse itself and touch the lives of all, that these two things are true. First, that no man can be really safe, really secure that the world shall not harm and poison him, unless there is going out from him a living and life-giving influence to other men. And second, that no man is really helping other men unless there is true life in his own soul. No man can really save another unless he saves himself. It is the good man by his good deeds that gives life to the world. Always it is the living, not the dead, who give life. It is the man not who has sinned deeply, but who has known by intense sympathy what sin is, how strong, how terrible, and yet escaped it for himself,-he is the man who helps the sinners most; he is the anointed who carries on and carries round the Christs salvation. In their deepest need the wickedest men look to the purest men they know; the deadest to the livest; first to those who they think have most escaped sin, then to those who they think have been most cleansed of sin by repentance and forgiveness. Here is a man in whom I know that the promise of Christ is certainly fulfilled. He is a believer, and through his open faith the life of Christ flows into him constantly, and is his life. Full of that life, he gives it everywhere he goes. The sick in soul touch his soul and are well again. The discouraged find new bravery; the yielding souls are clad anew with firmness. The frivolous grow serious, the mean are stung or tempted into generosity, and sinners hate their sin and crave a better life, wherever this man goes. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)
The secret of the believers helpfulness
The power of these life-giving lives seems to be described in these two words-testimony and transmission.
I. The testimony which they bear by the very fact of their own abundant life. They show the presence, they assert the possibility of vitality. Very often this is what souls whose spiritual life is weak and low need to have done for them. Men half alive grow to doubt of the fuller life in anybody. Men try to realize the descriptions of religion which they hear, and, falling short of them, they grow ready to believe that religion is a thing of excited imaginations, and to give up all thought of making it real in themselves. It is not only the badness in the world, it is the dreadful incredulity of good, it is the despair and lack of struggle which tells how low ebbs out the tide of spiritual life. Then comes the man in whom spiritual life is a real, deep, strong, positive thing. The first work which that man does is to bear the simple testimony of his life that life is possible. Already, just in acknowledgement of that, the sick faces begin to revive, and the sick eyes look up to him. The brave and godly boy among a group of boys just learning to be proud of godlessness and contemptuousness of piety-the man of golden principles among the sceptics of the street-the one true penitent rejoicing in a new and certain hope out of the ranks of flagrant sin-these instantly, the moment that they begin to live, begin to bear their testimony of life, and so make life about them.
II. Transmission. The highest statement of the culture of a human nature and of the best attainment that is set before it, is that, as it grows better, it grows more transparent and more simple, more capable therefore of simply and truly transmitting the life and will of God which is behind it. The thought of a man, as he improves and strengthens, getting the control of his own powers, and becoming more and more a source of power over other men, this thought, which has doubtless its own degree of truth, is limited and vulgar beside the breadth and fineness of the other idea, that as a man is trained and cultured, as the various events of life create their changes in him, as tempests beat him and sunshine bathes him, as he wrestles with temptation and yields to grace, as he goes on through the springtime, the summer, and the autumn of his life, the one highest purpose and result of it all is to beat and fuse his life into transparency, so that it can transmit the life of God. For all good is from God, and He uses our lives, all of them, to reach other mens lives with. Only the difference is this: upon a life of sin, all hard and black, God shines as the sun shines on the black, hard marble, and by reflection thence strikes on the things around, leaving the centre of the marble itself always dark. But on a life of obedience and faith, God shines as the sun shines on a block of crystal, sending its radiance through the willing and transparent mass, and warming and lighting it all into its inmost depths. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)
Signs unnecessary now
Though the miracle-working power remained in the Church after the ascension of our Lord, Christianity was made less dependent on such external signs and tokens, and more and more on the moral and spiritual power of the Word itself. With this promise compare the still more general one of Psa_91:1-16. Such signs as are indicated here are not needed in this age, when the Divine nature of Christianity is witnessed by such historical evidences as are afforded by the moral, the religious, the social, the political, and even the commercial development which has everywhere attended on and resulted from its progress. I can hardly conceive that occasion ever can arise for the further fulfilment of this promise. Christianity is itself a greater sign than any the apostles wrought. (Abbott.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.