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Search for the weirdest verses in the Bible and you get the same list every time. Bears. A dagger that gets stuck. A young man who falls out of a window during a long sermon. People share them as jokes, and honestly, some of them are funny.
But one of the strangest verses in the whole Bible is only two lines long, and almost nobody talks about it. It happens on the worst night of Jesus’s life. A young man runs off into the dark with no clothes on. And then he’s gone.
Or is he? Mark, the writer who told us about him, uses the same words again two chapters later. And once you see it, that “joke” verse starts to look like the whole Gospel in miniature.
A Short Tour of the Weirdest Verses in the Bible
Let’s start with the famous ones, because each of them is a little stranger than the meme version.
The bald prophet and the two bears (2 Kings 2:23-24)
The prophet Elisha is walking up the road to a town called Bethel. A crowd comes out and mocks him:
“Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.” (2 Kings 2:23, KJV)
Elisha curses them in the name of the LORD, “And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them” (2 Kings 2:24). The KJV calls the crowd “little children,” which is why this story shocks people. But the Hebrew words can also describe teenagers and young men. With at least forty-two of them on the road, this may have been a gang of youths, not a group of toddlers. It is still a hard story. It’s just not quite the story most memes tell.
The dagger that got stuck (Judges 3:22)
Ehud, a left-handed man from Israel, hides a dagger on his right thigh and gets a private meeting with Eglon, the king who is crushing his people. Then comes a verse no Sunday school lesson reads out loud:
“And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out.” (Judges 3:22, KJV)
The Hebrew word behind “the dirt” shows up only this once in the whole Old Testament, and translators still debate exactly what it means. Whatever it is, the writer clearly wanted you to wince.
The young man who fell asleep in church (Acts 20:9)
“And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.” (Acts 20:9, KJV)
Paul runs down, wraps his arms around him, and says, “Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him” (Acts 20:10). Every preacher who has ever watched someone nod off has thought about this verse.
If you enjoy this side of scripture, we’ve also looked at the real wit hiding in the Bible, the places where it is actually meant to make you smile. But the strangest verse of all stops being funny once you understand it.
Mark 14:51: The Young Man Who Ran Away Naked
It is night in the garden of Gethsemane. Judas has just arrived with a crowd carrying swords and sticks. Jesus is arrested. And then Mark writes one of the saddest sentences in the Bible:
“And they all forsook him, and fled.” (Mark 14:50, KJV)
All of them. Every friend Jesus had. And right after that, this:
“And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.” (Mark 14:51-52, KJV)
That’s it. No name. No reason he was there. No word on why he was wearing only a linen sheet at night. He gets grabbed, he slips free, and he runs into the dark with nothing on. The story simply moves on without him.
Why Would Anyone Put This in a Gospel?
Here is what makes the verse so odd. Matthew, Luke and John all tell the story of Jesus’s arrest. None of them include the naked young man. Only Mark does. Somebody decided this tiny, embarrassing detail belonged in the story.
People have guessed at the reason for a long time:
- It was Mark himself. This is the most popular guess. Mark’s family had a house in Jerusalem (Acts 12:12), so he could have been close by. The idea is that he quietly wrote himself into the story. It’s a lovely thought. But nothing in the text says so, and nobody can prove it.
- It was simply an eyewitness memory. Maybe it just happened, and someone who saw it never forgot it. It is an odd thing to make up.
- It echoes an old prophecy. The prophet Amos, describing a day of disaster, wrote: “And he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith the LORD” (Amos 2:16). Some readers hear that line behind Mark’s scene.
There is also a strange mirror back in Genesis. When his master’s wife grabbed Joseph, “he left his garment in her hand, and fled” (Genesis 39:12). Joseph ran away from sin and left his clothes behind. The young man in Mark runs away from Jesus and leaves his clothes behind. Same picture, opposite direction.
Two Chapters Later, the Same Words Come Back
Now jump to Sunday morning. Three women come to the tomb with spices. The stone has already been rolled away. They step inside, and:
“And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.” (Mark 16:5, KJV)
A young man. Again. Mark wrote in Greek, and in Greek the two scenes line up in a way English hides:
- The runaway in Mark 14:51 is a neaniskos, “a young man.” The figure sitting in the tomb in Mark 16:5 is also a neaniskos. Those are the only two times Mark uses that word for a single person in his whole Gospel.
- The runaway had a linen cloth “cast about” him. The one in the tomb is “clothed” in white. In Greek, both come from the same verb, periballō, which means “to wrap around.”
And here is the detail almost nobody mentions. The Greek word for the runaway’s linen cloth is sindōn. Mark uses that word in only one other place: when Joseph of Arimathea takes Jesus’s body down from the cross.
“And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.” (Mark 15:46, KJV)
So follow the cloth. A young man loses his linen and runs away, naked and ashamed. Jesus is wrapped in linen and laid in a grave. Then, inside that same grave, a young man sits calmly, clothed in white, with the best news anyone has ever heard.
Is the young man in the tomb the same person who ran away? Honestly, we don’t know. Matthew’s Gospel says “the angel of the Lord” rolled back the stone (Matthew 28:2), and many readers understand Mark’s young man as an angel too. Mark may not mean they are the same person at all. But he chose to use the same words, and the pattern is hard to miss once you’ve seen it: the story does not end with the one who ran away naked.
The Message Was Sent to the People Who Ran
This is where the weird verse stops being trivia.
Remember Mark 14:50? “They all forsook him, and fled.” By that night, every one of Jesus’s friends had run. Peter had gone further still. Before morning, he swore that he did not even know Jesus, three times over (Mark 14:66-72).
So listen to what the young man in the tomb says next:
“But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.” (Mark 16:7, KJV)
And Peter. The very first message of the resurrection in Mark is addressed to the runaways, and the worst runaway is named on purpose. Nobody is told to go and find better followers. The ones who fled are the ones Jesus is going ahead to meet.
Most of us have a Mark 14:52 moment somewhere in our story. The night we panicked. The time we left someone when they needed us. The thing we did that we still hope nobody remembers. We ran, we left something behind, and we have carried a quiet shame about it ever since.
Mark doesn’t hide that moment. He writes it down. And then he keeps the story going until someone is sitting in an empty tomb, dressed in white, saying: go and tell the ones who ran. Tell Peter especially. Jesus is waiting for them.
That is what God does with shame. It is real, and it is written down, but it does not get the last word. Restoration does. We looked at how that played out for Peter in the one Bible story about starting over where it actually worked. And if you have your own strange-verse questions, our free Bible Fun Facts assistant (it opens in ChatGPT) is happy to dig in with you.
Actions to Take Today
- Read the two scenes back to back. Open Mark 14:43-52, then Mark 16:1-8. It takes about five minutes. Notice who runs away in each one.
- Name your linen cloth. On a scrap of paper or in your phone’s notes, write one sentence about a moment you ran from: a person, a job, a hard conversation. Underneath it, write: “Tell his disciples and ___,” and put your own name in the blank.
- Send a “Galilee” message. Think of one person who went quiet after a bad moment in their life. Send a short note that asks nothing of them: “Thinking of you. No questions. I’m still here.”
Journaling Prompts
- When you ran from something in the past, what did you leave behind? Have you ever gone back for it?
- Is there a chapter of your life you have quietly decided is the ending? What might change if it were only chapter 14?
A Prayer
God, I know what it is like to run. There are moments I still think about, when I was scared and I left and I didn’t come back. Thank you that the runaway was written into the story instead of hidden, and that the message from the empty tomb was sent to the ones who fled, Peter by name. Help me believe my name belongs in that sentence too. Give me the courage to walk back toward Jesus today, even if I’m still ashamed. Amen.
Let’s Talk
Which one gets your vote for the weirdest verse in the Bible: the two bears, Ehud’s stuck dagger, Eutychus falling out of the window, or the young man who ran away naked? Or is there a stranger one we missed? Tell us in the comments.
Share This
- “I always thought Mark 14:51 was a joke verse. Then I noticed the message from the empty tomb was sent to the ones who ran away: ‘tell his disciples and Peter.’ That hit different.”
- “The weirdest verse in the Bible might be the young man who ran away naked when Jesus was arrested. Two chapters later, Mark uses the same Greek words for the young man sitting in the empty tomb. The one who ran is not the end of the story.”
- “Mark didn’t hide the night everyone ran. He wrote it down, and then he kept writing until the runaways got a message. Shame doesn’t get the last word.”
Q&A: Weird Bible Verses
What is the weirdest verse in the Bible?
There is no official answer, but Mark 14:51-52 is often named among the strangest verses in the Bible. During Jesus’s arrest in Gethsemane, an unnamed young man wearing only a linen cloth is grabbed, slips out of the cloth, and runs away naked. Only Mark’s Gospel records it. Other often-cited strange verses include 2 Kings 2:23-24 (Elisha and the two bears), Judges 3:22 (Ehud’s dagger) and Acts 20:9 (Eutychus falling from a window during Paul’s preaching).
Who was the young man who ran away naked in Mark 14?
The Bible does not say who the young man in Mark 14:51-52 was. A popular suggestion is that he was Mark, the Gospel’s traditional author, whose family home was in Jerusalem according to Acts 12:12. Others see an eyewitness memory, or an echo of Amos 2:16, which speaks of the courageous fleeing naked. None of these ideas can be proven.
Is the young man in Mark 14:51 the same as the young man at the tomb in Mark 16:5?
Nobody knows for certain. In Greek, Mark describes both figures with the same word for “young man” (neaniskos) and the same verb for being wrapped in clothing (periballō), which invites comparison: one flees naked, the other sits in Jesus’s tomb clothed in white. Matthew’s Gospel describes an angel at the tomb, and many readers understand Mark’s young man as an angel. The link between the two scenes is a literary pattern, not a proven identification.
Why was the young man in Gethsemane wearing only a linen cloth?
Mark 14:51 does not explain why the young man was wearing only a linen cloth, and any reason offered is a guess. The Greek word for the cloth, sindōn, is the same word Mark uses in Mark 15:46 for the fine linen Joseph of Arimathea wrapped around Jesus’s body before burial. That shared word is one reason readers connect the runaway’s lost cloth with Jesus’s burial and resurrection.
Why does Mark 16:7 say “tell his disciples and Peter”?
In Mark 16:7, the young man in Jesus’s empty tomb tells the women to “tell his disciples and Peter” that Jesus is going before them into Galilee. Peter is singled out right after he denied knowing Jesus three times (Mark 14:66-72), and after all the disciples fled at the arrest (Mark 14:50). Naming Peter shows that the first resurrection message in Mark was sent to the followers who had run away, including the one who failed most publicly.
