Exegesis:

epignous en heautō (cf. 2.8 epignous … tō pneumati autou) ‘perceiving in himself,’ ‘sensing in himself.’

tēn ex autou dunamin exelthousan ‘the power from him which had gone out’: the meaning here, clearly, is ‘sensing that (the) power had gone out from him.’ Taylor, however, following Swete, argues that ex autou ‘from him’ is an additional statement concerning the power that resided in Jesus, and defends the American Standard Version rendition ‘the power proceeding from him had gone forth.’ As Field points out, however, what is said is not that Jesus was conscious of his power: he was conscious that it had gone forth. This is the meaning that practically all modern translations give to the phrase.

dunamis ‘power,’ ‘strength’ is used in Mark in three ways: (1) in the sense of ‘power’ as such, 5.30; 9.1; 12.24; 13.26; (2) with the meaning ‘miracle’: in the sg. 6.5; 9.39, in the pl. 6.2, 14 (3) personalized, 13.25 (‘the powers in the heavens’) and 14.62 (‘the Power,’ i.e. God).

epistrapheis (cf. 4.12) ‘turning,’ ‘turning around’ – here in a physical sense.

sunthlibonta (v. 24) ‘pressing,’ ‘crowding,’ ‘jostling.’

Translation:

Power must be translated with care, since a literal rendering may result in bad distortion of the meaning of the passage. For example, in Loma (Liberia) a literal rendering would denote that Jesus had lost his strength, i.e. had become helpless. In another language, this expression about ‘power going out of a person’ is a euphemistic, but common, way of speaking about the male function in sexual intercourse. In some languages, therefore, certain adaptations must be made, e.g. ‘person-heal-power’ (Loma (Liberia)) and ‘medicinal power,’ in which ‘medicinal’ means essentially ‘healing’ (Tabasco Chontal), and ‘know-how’ (Highland Oaxaca Chontal) in which one must use ‘know-how’ rather than literally ‘power’ or ‘strength,’ for the latter would be equivalent to saying that having lost his strength, he could do nothing in the future, until this was magically recovered – a parallel to common practices in witchcraft. Pamona renders ‘a miracle-power had gone out from Him,’ a precise and accurate expression.

It is not easy to render the obvious irony in the voice of the disciples who exclaim and yet you say…. This may be approximated in some languages by employing a double question, e.g. ‘You see the crowd pressing around you; then how can you say, Who touched me?’ Cf. Toraja-Sa’dan ‘But you see that the crowd is pressing round you, and then you say….’

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 .