Exegesis:
esiōpa (cf. 3.4) ‘he remained silent,’ ‘he maintained silence.’
ouk apekrinato ouden literally ‘he did not answer nothing’: in Greek the double negative is emphatic (and not, as in some languages, equivalent to an affirmative).
su ei ho christos…; ‘are you the Messiah?’: the personal pronoun su ‘you’ is emphatic (cf. Le Nouveau Testament. Version Synodale C’est toi qui es le Christ…?). Taylor suggests it may be also contemptuous.
ho christos (cf. 1.1) ‘the Messiah,’ ‘the Anointed One’: here, as in 8.29; 12.35; 13.21, a title.
No indication is given in the question of the answer expected.
ho huios tou eulogētou ‘the Son of the Blessed (One).’
ho huios (cf. 1.1) ‘the Son.’
ho eulogētos (only here in Mark; cf. eulogeō 6.41) ‘the Blessed One’: this is a familiar Jewish way of referring to God, avoiding reference to the holy, unpronounceable name of God by using a title. The whole phrase usually employed was ‘the Holy One, Blessed is He.’ In the New Testament eulogētos is always used of God (Lk. 1.68, Rom. 1.25, 9.5, 2 Cor. 1.3, 11.31, Eph. 1.3, 1 Pet. 1.3).
Translation:
He was silent and made no answer is in a sense repetitious, but the redundancy is purposeful and emphatic and hence should be treated as such in any translation, e.g. ‘he kept silent; he did not speak’ or ‘he did not open his mouth; he did not answer with a single word.’
The Son of the Blessed is an extremely complex phrase and subject to ready misinterpretation. For example, in many languages this passage has been understood to be a reference to the blessed Virgin. In such instances one may be required to add the word ‘God,’ e.g. ‘Son of God, who is blessed.’
For discussion of some of the problems involving the translation of bless see 6.41 and 11.9-10, but note that in this passage bless refers to an activity of a lower personage to a higher one, namely, man’s blessing of God. Blessing in this type of context is often rendered (1) by a term such as ‘praise’ or ‘honor,’ or (2) by direct discourse, e.g. ‘say: he is very good.’ The following translations of this expression are typical, e.g. ‘Son of the honored one’ (Amganad Ifugao), ‘Son of God whom people worship’ (Sapo), ‘Son of one very much his goodness is said about him by us’ (Tzeltal), ‘Son of the one whom we praise’ (Cashibo-Cacataibo, Central Tarahumara), and ‘Son of the one people say, He is very good’ (Tzotzil).
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 .