Exegesis:

eti autou lalountos ‘while he was speaking’: the present participle portrays the action still in progress.

erchontai apo tou archisunagōgou ‘they come from the (house of the) ruler of the synagogue’: so the majority of modern translations. Another translation is possible by understanding apo ‘from’ to mean ‘some from’: the phrase would then mean ‘some men of the household of the ruler of the synagogue’ (cf. Translator’s New Testament ‘some of the men of the officer of the synagogue’).

erchontai ‘they come’ is another example of the impersonal plural: ‘men come.’

apethanen (5.39; 9.26; 12.19, 20, 21, 22; 15.44) ‘she died,’ ‘she is dead.’

ti eti skulleis ton didaskalon ‘why are you still bothering the Teacher?’

skullō (only here in Mark) literally ‘flay’; ‘bother,’ ‘annoy,’ ‘trouble.’

ho didaskalos (cf. 4.38) ‘the Teacher,’ ‘the Rabbi.’

Translation:

The impersonal indirect type of expression there came … some must frequently be shifted to a more direct form, e.g. ‘some men from the ruler’s house came…’ or ‘some men came from the ruler’s house.’

Though the Greek has only ‘ruler of the synagogue,’ a type of compound, it is often necessary to add ‘the house’ (as in English). One may, of course, also use ‘synagogue’ in this phrase if this is required by the context, but generally the complete expression, as given in 5.22, is sufficiently full that in verse 5.35 one need only speak of the ‘ruler’ or the ‘leader.’

Said must in some languages be expanded to include the object of the saying, namely, the ruler of the synagogue.

The sequence of events may require is dead to be rendered as ‘is now dead’ or ‘has now died.’

For the translation of teacher, see 2.13.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .