Exegesis:

tē enatē hōra (cf. te prōtē hēmera 14.12) ‘at the ninth hour,’ ‘at three o’clock.’

eboēsen (cf. 1.3) ‘he cried out,’ ‘he shouted.’

phōnē megalē (cf. 1.26; 5.7) ‘with a loud voice,’ ‘with a great cry.’

elōi elōi lama sabachthani ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ It is debated whether the cry was uttered in Hebrew or Aramaic. The Hebrew of Ps. 22.2 reads, transliterated, ʾeli ʾeli lamah ʿazavtani. The reaction of the bystanders – ‘He calls for Elijah!’ – is more intelligible if the cry was uttered in Hebrew (cf. Lagrange, Taylor).

ho estin methermēneuomenon (cf. v. 22) ‘which, translated, is.’

ho theos mou ‘my God’: this is to understood as a vocative, the case of address.

eis ti ‘why?.’

egkatelipes (only here in Mark; cf. kataleipō 10.7) ‘you forsook,’ ‘you abandoned,’ ‘you left.’

Translation:

Cried is to be understood in the sense of ‘shouted,’ not ‘cried,’ as in tears or weeping.

In translations into so-called primitive languages one must transliterate Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, using as a basis for the pronunciation the form in which this expression is uttered in the dominant language of the area, e.g. French, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Indonesian, etc. It is not recommended in these cases that one go to the Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic form as a basis for the transliteration since any further acquaintance which people will have with such an expression will be in the form which it has already been given in Bibles published in languages of greater prestige.

Forsaken is to be understood in the sense of ‘left,’ ‘deserted,’ or ‘gone away from me’ (Navajo).

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 .