5:8–9a

For a suggestion about using indirect speech in these verses, see the General Comment on 5:8–9a at the end of the note on 5:9a.

5:8a

For Jesus had already declared: This verse describes what happened just before the man’s plea in 5:7. It explains the reason why the evil spirit begged Jesus not to torment him. (In Greek, both the conjunction that is translated as For by the Berean Standard Bible and the imperfect verb tense show that Mark is giving a background explanation here.) The Berean Standard Bible indicates this by using the connector For and the verb form had…declared. Use a natural way in your language to indicate that 5:8 explains what happened in 5:7.

Here are some other ways to translate this:

The man said this because Jesus had already told… (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
For Jesus had said to him just before this…

See also the General Comment on 5:7–8 at the end of 5:8b for a suggested way to reorder 5:7–8.

The Greek text includes the phrase “to him.” The pronoun “him” probably refers to the unclean spirit, since Jesus directly addresses the spirit in 5:8b. Use a natural form in your language. (See the note on Paragraph 5:6–10.) For example, the New Living Translation says:

For Jesus had already said to the spirit

As the Berean Standard Bible illustrates, in some languages it may not be necessary to make the word him explicit. For example:

He said that because Jesus had already commanded

5:8b

Come out of this man, you unclean spirit!: The words you unclean spirit indicate that Jesus spoke directly to the evil spirit in the man. In some languages it will be more natural to change the order of the words in this clause. For example, the Good News Bible says:

Evil spirit, come out of this man!

Come out of this man: The verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Come out is a normal way in Greek to speak of a demon releasing control of a person. It indicates here that Jesus commanded the demon to leave the man and stop controlling him.

In some cultures, people do not think of demons as being in a person. If that is true in your language, it may not be natural to speak of them coming or going out of a person. Use a natural expression in your language for when a demon stops controlling a person.

Here are some other ways to translate this:

Leave him!
-or-
Release him!

Translate this command in a way that fits the expression you used for the phrase “with an unclean spirit” in 5:2b–c. See also the note on “Come out of him” at 1:25b. See evil spirit in the Glossary for more information.

you unclean spirit: The Berean Standard Bible adds the word you in this phrase to show that the Greek form indicates that Jesus is speaking to the unclean spirit. In some languages it may not be natural to say both “you” and “unclean spirit.” Translate in a way that indicates that Jesus is speaking to the unclean spirit.

unclean spirit: See the note on 5:2b.

General Comment on 5:7–8

In 5:8, Jesus ordered the evil spirit to leave the man. This happened before the evil spirit begged Jesus not to torment him in 5:7. It may be more natural in your language to place these events in the order in which they happened. If that is true, you could combine these two verses and change the order. For example:

Jesus said to him, “Evil spirit, come out of this man!” The man shouted with a loud voice, “Jesus, Son of the Most High God, what do you want with me? Promise to God that you will not torment me!”

© 2008 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.