Exegesis:
autos gar ho Hērōdēs ‘for Herod himself’: most translations disregard the personal pronoun autos ‘he’ as being redundant (cf., however, Manson ‘for this same Herod…’).
This whole narrative (6.17-29) of the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist is parenthetical, being here inserted to explain the statement (v. 14) that Jesus was John risen from the dead. The order of events here is not chronological: the arrest of John had taken place before Jesus began his ministry in Galilee (1.14), but we are not given the precise time of his subsequent death at the hands of Herod Antipas.
aposteilas ekratēsen ‘sending he arrested’: ‘he sent and arrested.’ Arndt & Gingrich cassify this use of the verb ‘send’ as an auxiliary meaning that ‘the action has been performed by someone else’: here it would mean ‘he had John arrested.’
krateō (cf. 1.31) ‘seize,’ ‘arrest.’
kai edēsen autōn en phulakē ‘and he bound him in prison’ not in the sense that he was in prison, tied up, but ‘bound him (and put him) in prison.’
deō (cf. 3.27) ‘bind,’ ‘restrict.’
phulakē (6.28, 48) ‘prison’; in 6.48 it means ‘watch’ (i.e. an interval of time).
dia Herōdiada ‘on account of Herodias’: Revised Standard Version ‘for the sake of’ may be misunderstood.
On the identity of the Philip here referred to, see the commentaries.
hoti autēn egamēsen ‘because he (Herod) married her’: this clause explains the statement that John had been placed in prison on account of Herodias.
gameō (10.11, 12; 12.25) ‘to marry’: generally used of men.
Translation:
Sent and seized is either ‘sent men to seize’ or ‘caused John to be seized.’ Seized should here be translated as ‘arrested.’
Bound him in prison is ‘had him put in prison’ or, where the idiom may require, ‘tied him up in jail,’ but not necessarily with the literal meaning of ‘to bind.’
For the sake of Herodias may be variously translated, depending upon the perspective in question: ‘because of Herodias’ (meaning, because of what she had done, asked, or wanted), ‘in order to please Herodias,’ or ‘he did this for Herodias.’
Contemporary historical sources indicate that there are some difficulties involved in this statement of the relationship of Herodias to Philip, but the translator is not called upon to re-edit, but to translate. Hence, one may say ‘Herodias had been the wife of Philip, Herod’s brother’ (‘younger brother,’ if such a distinction is required).
Because he had married her is very loosely connected with the preceding. If translated without some more precise transition, it may mean in some languages that ‘Herodias was Philip’s wife because he (i.e. Philip) had married her.’ As a result, one must recast the sentence somewhat to read, ‘this happened because Herod had married Herodias.’ The pronominal element should refer to all the preceding sequence, including if possible the concern of Herod, the imprisonment of John, and Herod’s actions in order to please Herodias.
Note that the sequence of events as described: (1) the worry of Herod, (2) the beheading of John, (3) the imprisonment of John, and (4) Herod’s marriage to Herodias are told in reverse order of their temporal sequence. In some languages this requires very careful handling of conjunctions or tense forms of the verbs.
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 .