Exegesis:

opsias genomenēs (1.32; 6.47; 14.17; 15.42) ‘when evening had come’: presumably at, or after sunset.

dielthōmen eis to peran ‘let us go to the other side.’

dierchomai (10.25) ‘go through’ literally; here ‘go,’ ‘go across.’

eis to peran ‘to the other side’: normally, as here, meaning Perea, the country east of the Lake of Galilee (cf. 5.1), or of the Jordan river (cf. 3.8; 10.1). In the literal sense ‘to the other side’ it is used in 5.21; 6.45; 8.13.

kai aphentes … paralambanousin ‘and leaving … they take’: the subject is ‘the disciples.’

aphiēmi (cf. 1.18; 2.5) ‘leave,’ ‘abandon’; some translate “dismiss”, which is not supported by Marcan usage (apoluō is ‘dismiss,’ ‘send away’: cf. 6.36, 45; 8.3, 9).

paralambanō (5.40; 7.4; 9.2; 10.32; 14.33) ‘take,’ ‘take with’ (or ‘along’): there is no idea of force implied (cf. Lagrange).

hōs ēn en tō ploiō ‘as he was in the boat’: hōs ‘as,’ denoting comparison, means that Jesus still was in the boat in which he had pushed off from shore to teach the crowd (4.1), without having gone ashore. Translator’s New Testament takes hōs as temporal ‘while’: the great majority of translations, however, assume the meaning ‘as.’

alla ploia ēn met’ autou ‘other boats were with him’: so the great majority of translations; Translator’s New Testament, however, has “it” (the boat).

Translation:

Because of possible confusion in rendering them, in view of the fact that for the most part the crowd has been referred to by such a third person plural pronoun, it may be advisable to translate ‘said to the disciples.’

Go across must be made quite specific in some languages. For example, in Aymara, a language spoken by about one million Indians around Lake Titicaca in the Andes between Bolivia and Peru, one must specify whether ‘going across’ denotes from one side of the lake to another or from one projection of land (into the lake) to another such projection. In this context, one would seem to be dealing with a passage across the main body of the lake to Perea.

To the other side must often be elaborated to mean ‘to the land on the other side of the lake’ (Kekchi).

One must be quite careful in translating took him, for in some languages the connotation is one of ‘forcible arrest’ or ‘manhandling.’ One may, however, say ‘go with him’ or ‘have him go with them.’

Just as he was does not refer to Jesus’ appearance, but his place, already in the boat. This meaning may be indicated by some paratactic constructions, e.g. ‘the disciples had him go with them in the boat; he was already there in the boat.’

For problems involving the size of the boat, see 1.19.

Were with him is equivalent in some languages to ‘went along at the same time.’ Note, however, that verbs used in speaking of boats ‘going’ may be entirely different from those used of motion by birds, animals, or persons.

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 .