Exegesis:

The narrative portion of this verse is built upon a succession of three participles and three finite verbs: esthiontōn … labōn … eulogēsas eklasen kai edōken … kai eipen ‘while (they) were eating … (he) taking … blessing he broke and gave … and said.’

labōn (cf. 6.41; 8.6; 14.23) ‘taking’: from the table, where it would be with the food.

eulogēsas (cf. 6.41) ‘blessing’: as noticed in the study of the verb in 6.41, eulogeō and eucharisteō (next verse) both refer to the same action of ‘blessing God,’ i.e. praising God, being both the equivalent of the Hebrew barak. The Jewish “blessing” which was spoken over the bread was, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, king of the world, who causest bread to come forth from the earth” (Jeremias).

eklasen (cf. 8.6) ‘he broke (into pieces).’

labete ‘(you) take (it),’ i.e. the piece of bread which Jesus gave to each of them.

touto estin to sōma mou ‘this is my body’: whatever interpretation be given to this saying, the translation must faithfully represent the plain meaning of the words. Such translations as ‘this means my body’ (Moffatt), or ‘this represents my body’ (Williams) are not to be recommended.

Translation:

He should be rendered as ‘Jesus’ in a number of languages since the immediately preceding third person singular referent is the one who is to betray the Son of man.

For bless see 6.41 and 11.9, 10.

Take may require an object, e.g. ‘take this’ or ‘take these pieces of bread.’

Body must not be translated as ‘corpse.’ The closest equivalent in some languages is ‘my meat and bones’ (which is equivalent to body) or ‘myself,’ also used to identify the living body in which one dwells.

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 .