Exegesis:
kath’ hēmeran ‘daily,’ ‘every day’: the preposition kata has here the distributive force. It has been suggested, however, that the phrase here means ‘by day,’ ‘in the day-time,’ as opposed to the night-time hour of the arrest.
pros humas ‘with you,’ ‘in your company’: the preposition pros here indicates position, rather than motion.
all’ hina plērōthōsin hai graphai ‘but (this has happened) in order that the Scriptures be fulfilled’: by all translations this saying is punctuated as having been spoken by Jesus. Instead of taking hina here to indicate purpose, some commentators and translations (like Revised Standard Version) take it to be imperatival: ‘The Scriptures must be fulfilled!.’
plēroō (cf. 1.15) ‘fulfill.’
hai graphai (cf. 12.10; for the plural cf. 12.24) ‘the Scriptures.’
Translation:
Day after day is probably best taken as a distributive, translatable as ‘many days’ or ‘on successive days,’ literally ‘days, days’ in some languages.
For temple see 11.11, and for scriptures see 12.10.
Let … be fulfilled should not be translated as a request for permission. The meaning is either ‘the holy writings must be fulfilled’ or ‘this has happened so that the holy writings may be fulfilled.’
Fulfilled is an extremely difficult concept to translate in some languages. Actually, ‘fulfilling writing’ is quite impossible in certain instances, and one is obliged to render this passage as ‘so that what was spoken of in the holy writings may happen’ (or ‘may occur’).
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 .
