Exegesis:

ekalesen (2.17; 3.31; 11.17) ‘call’: from this basic meaning there develops further the meaning ‘to invite,’ ‘to summon’ and the word becomes a technical term meaning ‘to summon before a court.’ From this latter meaning the sense of the verb in this passage is derived ‘call to discipleship.’

aphentes … apēlthon ‘leaving … they went off’ means ‘they left and went.’

misthōtōn (only here in Mark) ‘hired men’: the literal meaning of the noun (from misthos ‘pay,’ ‘wage’) should be observed; these are not douloi ‘slaves’ or diakonoi ‘servants,’ but helpers hired for the job (cf. Lagrange).

en tō ploiō ‘in the boat’ and meta tōn misthōtōn ‘with the hired men’ are connected with Zebedee, not ‘they’ (i.e. James and John).

apēlthon opisō autou ‘went off after him’: here is the same idea of discipleship as in ēkolouthēsan autō ‘followed him’ in v. 18 and deute opisō mou ‘come after me’ in v. 17.

Translation:

In translating call one must make certain that the term chosen in the receptor language conveys something of the meaning of ‘call to follow,’ ‘summon to accompany,’ or ‘invite to come,’ for if not, it may signify only that Jesus shouted at the men. Where necessary, one may use the phrase ‘called them to accompany him.’

In some languages it is difficult (and unnecessarily awkward) to distinguish precisely between the two senses in which Zebedee, on the one hand and he hired servants, on the other, were left by James and John. For example, in Amganad Ifugao one would say ‘left Zebedee their father and the hired servants in the boat’ rather than ‘Zebedee with the hired servants.’ The important mistake to avoid is linking the hired servants with James and John and hence implying that they went off with Jesus and the disciples, as has been the case in some translations.

In some instances one needs to be very specific about personal reference, but sometimes it is possible to be overly repetitious. In Yatzachi Zapotec, for example, one should not repeat Zebedee in verse 20, for he is already specifically identified in the previous sentence and to repeat the name would be misleading, implying some other Zebedee was meant.

Hired servants are simply ‘the workmen’ or ‘the day laborers.’

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 .