Exegesis:

diamerizontai ta himatia autou ‘they divided his garments among themselves,’ ‘they distribute his garments among themselves’: only here in the N.T. is diamerizō used.

ballontes klēron ep’ auta ‘casting lots over them’: the participle clause is of manner, indicating the way in which they divided the clothes among themselves. This was accomplished by means of pebbles or a small stick .

klēros (only here in Mark) ‘lot.’

tis ti arē ‘who should take what,’ i.e. what each one should get.

The language of this verse is patterned after Ps. 22.19.

Translation:

For crucified see verse 13.

Since in some languages the temporal sequence must be followed in a series of events such as are described in divided … casting … decide, a recasting of the order is required, e.g. ‘they cast lots in order to decide who should get which piece of Jesus’ clothing and in this way they divided his garments.’ If this order is not followed, people may interpret the action as first dividing the garments equally and then gambling in order to see which soldier would end up with most garments.

Casting lots is a quite common practice in many parts of the world, but it is not universally known. Accordingly, in some areas one may need to employ some sort of descriptive equivalent, e.g. ‘tossed little marked pebbles in order to know’ or ‘decided by playing with little stones.’ In Shipibo-Conibo the passage is rendered as ‘they shook little things to get his clothes, in order to know who would get what.’ And in Tzeltal the usage is ‘made play to see who would get what clothes.’

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 .