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Mark 6 · a question people ask

"He could do no mighty work there" (6:5). Couldn't Jesus do anything he wanted?

In the text

Here is exactly what the verses say. "He could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them" (6:5). Then, "He marveled because of their unbelief" (6:6). So even there some sick people were healed. Matthew tells it this way: "He didn’t do many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58). Mark has could do no, with a few sick people healed, and sets their unbelief in the next sentence; Matthew has didn’t do many, with "because of their unbelief" in the same sentence. The verses say no more about why, and these notes don't explain it beyond them.

The verses

“He could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. He marveled because of their unbelief. He went around the villages teaching.”
Mark 6:5-6 · World English Bible
“He didn’t do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.”
Matthew 13:58 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Mark 6

Mark 6: Five loaves and two fish

Mark says only once that Jesus marveled: at the unbelief of his own country (6:6). And Mark ends the night on the sea with his own disciples amazed, because they "hadn’t understood about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened" (6:52), though they had just set the loaves before five thousand men.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions