Text:
At the end of the verse Textus Receptus, Soden, Vogels, and Merk add aras ton stauron ‘taking up the cross,’ which is omitted by the majority of modern editions of the Greek text.
Exegesis:
emblepsas autō ēgapēsen auton ‘looking on him he loved him.’
emblepō (cf. 8.25) ‘see,’ ‘look at,’ ‘look on.’
agapaō (12.30, 31, 33) ‘love’: here Field suggests that perhaps it means ‘he caressed him,’ and gives examples of the verb used with this meaning.
hen se husterei literally ‘one thing lacks you’: the verb hustereō means ‘fail,’ ‘lack’ and is here used impersonally; the numeral hen ‘one thing’ is the subject, and the personal pronoun se ‘you’ is the object.
hosa echeis pōlēson ‘whatever you have sell.’
hosa (cf. 3.8) ‘everything that,’ ‘as many things as.’
pōleō (11.15) ‘sell.’
kai dos tois ptōchois ‘and give (the proceeds from the sale) to the poor’ (cf. The Modern Speech New Testament).
thēsauron en ouranō ‘treasure in heaven’: Arndt & Gingrich comment, “which is, as it were, deposited there and becomes available to men after death.” Or, as Taylor comments, ‘treasure in heaven’ means ‘treasure with God.’
ouranos (cf. 1.10) ‘heaven’ where God dwells.
deuro (only here in Mark; cf. deute 1.17) is an adverb ‘hither’ used as an imperative ‘come!’
akolouthei (cf. 1.18) ‘you follow,’ ‘become my disciple.’
Translation:
Loved should be translated in such a way as to indicate Jesus’ profound admiration and regard for this young man, but one must carefully avoid any suggestion of emotional attitude which would imply amorous instincts of homosexuality. In speaking of love, whether divine or human, there are a number of idiomatic expressions used in various languages, e.g. ‘his heart burned for’ (Guerrero Amuzgo), ‘he hurt in his heart’ (Tzeltal), ‘his heart went away with’ (Mitla Zapotec), ‘his abdomen died for him’ (Conob), ‘his thoughts were toward him’ (Cashibo-Cacataibo), and ‘put him in his heart’ (Toro So Dogon).
A literal rendering of you lack one thing may be quite misleading, if it refers essentially to the lack of possessions. The meaning here is that there is still one thing which he should do, e.g. ‘you still fail in one thing’ (in the sense of ‘action’ or ‘activity’).
Give to the poor must be understood in the sense of ‘distribute the proceeds (i.e. ‘the money’) to the poor people.’
And come must be rendered in some languages as involving some transitional element, since the last two imperative verbs are not completely coordinate with the first three. That is to say, the commands to go, sell and give represent one stage, followed by the commands, come, follow. Accordingly, one must sometimes translate as ‘then come, follow me.’
For follow see 1.17.
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 .