Text:

hupokatō ‘under’ is read by Westcott and Hort, Lagrange, Nestle, Kilpatrick, and Taylor, while hupopodion ‘footstool’ is read by Textus Receptus, Tischendorf, Soden, Vogels, Souter, and Merk. The genuine reading in the O.T. passage quoted (Ps. 110.1) is hupopodion (the Septuagint translation of hadom ‘footstool’): this fact, besides the manuscript evidence, makes it probable that the genuine reading here is hupokatō ‘under’ (as well as in the parallel Mt. 22.44; in Lk. 20.43, however, the true reading is hupopodion ‘footstool’).

Exegesis:

autos Dauid ‘David himself’: in accordance with normal Greek usage the pronoun is emphatic (cf. Lagrange); Black, however, sees Semitic influence and translates ‘He, David.’

en tō pneumati tō hagiō ‘in the Holy Spirit,’ ‘under the influence of the Holy Spirit.’

to pneuma to hagion (cf. 1.8) ‘the Holy Spirit.’

The passage quoted (Ps. 110.1) is the O.T. passage most often quoted in the New Testament. It is here reproduced exactly as the Septuagint translates the Hebrew, with the single exception of the omission of the definite article ho before kurios ‘Lord.’ This does not, however, affect the meaning of the passage.

eipen kurios tō kuriō mou ‘the Lord said to my Lord’: the Greek is a translation of the Hebrew neʾem YHWH laʾdoni ‘said Yahweh to my Lord.’ As quoted here Kurios (YHWH) is God, while the second kurios mou (ʾadoni) ‘my Lord,’ is the Messiah. If language allows, the translation should be equivalent to the Greek, ‘the Lord said to my Lord.’ If, however, ambiguity arises from this double use of ‘Lord,’ the meaning may be conveyed by ‘The Lord (or, God) said to my Messiah,’ or, ‘God said to my Lord.’ By no means, however, should a translation read ‘God said to Christ,’ in which ‘Christ’ is a proper name: such a translation would altogether mar the allusiveness of the quotation on the lips of Jesus.

kathou ek dexiōn mou ‘sit at my right hand’: the ‘right hand’ is the place of authority and power.

kathēmai (cf. 2.6) ‘to sit.’

ek dexiōn mou (cf. 10.37) ‘at my right.’

heōs an ‘until’: this phrase may mean ‘until that time – and no longer’ (as it does in 6.10; cf. also heōs alone in 6.45 and 14.32), but not necessarily so. It is the context which determines the particular force of the phrase, and here, as well as in 9.1, it is not to be inferred that the action of the verb (‘sit’) is to last only until the point indicated by the heōs an clause (‘until I put your enemies under your feet’), and is then terminated. Cf. 9.1 for a similar instance of this usage.

hupokatō tōn podōn sou ‘underneath your feet’: as indicated in Text (above), the Septuagint, a passage also often quoted in the N.T. The figure is that of subjection of enemies, in which the victors placed their feet upon the necks of their defeated enemies (cf. Joshua 10.24).

Translation:

Inspired by the Holy Spirit is an Revised Standard Version rendering of the secondary agency, indicated in Greek by the use of the preposition en ‘in’ or ‘by’ and the dative case of the following noun phrase ‘the Holy Spirit.’ In some languages one can use a preposition such as ‘by’ or ‘through,’ but in other languages one must employ a kind of paratactic construction, e.g. ‘David said; the Holy Spirit caused him to say it’ (Sayula Popoluca).

The Lord must often be adapted to the requirements of possession, since ‘Lord’ cannot occur in some languages without some possessive, e.g. ‘our Lord.’ In Tzeltal, for example, ‘our Lord’ is commonly used of God, and hence in the passage ‘our Lord said to my Lord’ the meaning is relatively clear, despite the generally allusive character of the passage.

At my right hand (cf. usage in 10.37) may require a marginal note in some languages in order to indicate that this is the preferred or honored position, since in some cultures the right hand is regarded as the place of less honor than the left.

Put should not be rendered in a grossly literal manner. The meaning is better conveyed in some languages by a causative, e.g. ‘cause your enemies to be.’

Since a position ‘under the feet’ is generally regarded as one of inferiority or defeat, such an idiom is almost always quite acceptable and does not require any marginal explanation.

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 .