Exegesis:
ēganaktēsen (10.41; 14.4) ‘he grew indignant,’ ‘he got angry,’ ‘he was aroused.’
aphete (cf. 2.5) ‘allow,’ ‘permit,’ ‘let.’
mē kōluete auta ‘stop forbidding them,’ ‘quit hindering them.’
kōluō (cf. 9.38) ‘hinder,’ ‘forbid,’ ‘restrain.’
tōn gar toioutōn estin hē basileia tou theou ‘for of such as these is the Kingdom of God’ (cf. Translator’s New Testament).
ho toioutos ‘one of this kind,’ ‘one of this sort,’ ‘one such as this’: the proper force of this correlative demonstrative pronoun of quality should be observed, and not be reduced simply to, a demonstrative, as though it meant only ‘this one.’ Cf. Goodspeed ‘such as they’; Moffatt ‘such as these’; Manson ‘such as them’; Le Nouveau Testament. Version Synodale ceux qui leur resemblent. As seen in the next verse hōs paidion ‘as a child,’ Jesus is speaking of the characteristics or qualities of children, not of the children themselves (so most commentators; Lagrange, however, supposes that both meanings à ceux qui resemblent aux enfants, and à ces enfants eux-mêmes are not mutually exclusive).
eimi ‘to be’ with the genitive may mean ‘belongs to,’ indicating possession, or quality.
hē basileia tou theou (cf. 1.15) ‘the Kingdom of God.’
Translation:
It is in some languages ‘what had happened’ or ‘what they were doing.’
Said to them refers to the statement to the disciples, e.g. ‘said to the disciples,’ In some languages this third person plural object tends to be related to the immediately preceding pronoun of the same type, which refers to those bringing the children to Jesus.
For kingdom of God see 1.15 and 4.11.
To such belongs implies a very difficult relationship in some languages, especially where kingdom is translated as ‘rule’ or ‘government,’ as a process rather than an object. In such instances one cannot speak of a person possessing such a process. In Copainalá Zoque the entire construction is recast as ‘God will rule over such as these.’ In Tzeltal an entirely different perspective is employed, e.g. ‘persons like these will reach God’s government.’
It is possible to interpret the Greek expression tōn … toiautōn estin ‘of such is’ as referring to the quality of the participants, rather than to possession. In this case, the relationship of the kingdom to the participants becomes somewhat easier to express, especially in languages in which kingdom is translated as ‘rule’ or ‘government’ (i.e. as a process rather than an object). For example, in Inupiaqthis passage is rendered as ‘the kingdom of God is full of people who are as children,’ a close equivalent of one possible meaning of the Greek expression.
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 .