Text:
Instead of the masculine form koum of the great majority of modern editions of the Greek text, Textus Receptus, Souter (and Revised Standard Version) have the feminine form koumi (cf. the discussion in Lagrange).
Exegesis:
kratēsas tēs cheiros (cf. 1.31) ‘seizing her hand.’
legei autē ‘he says to her’: the concordance of genders is logical ‘her,’ i.e. ‘the girl’ and not grammatical (since the antecedent tou paidiou ‘the child’ is neuter).
talitha koum: a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic telithaʾ qum ‘damsel arise.’
ho estin methermēneuomenon ‘which is translated,’ i.e. ‘which translated means.’
methermēneuomai (15.22, 34) ‘be translated,’ ‘be interpreted.’
to korasion (5.42; 6.22, 28), ‘maiden,’ ‘girl’: another use of the nominative form for the vocative case (cf. 5.8, 34).
egeire (cf. 1.31) ‘rise,’ ‘get up.’ Whether this means simply ‘rise from the bed,’ or ‘rise from the dead’ will be determined by the meaning given the statement of Jesus concerning the girl in v. 39.
Translation:
Taking her … he said may be rendered by two coordinate expressions ‘he took hold of her hand and he said.’
Talitha cumi should be transliterated in such a way as to represent the closest sound equivalents in the receptor language. For a discussion of the problems of transliteration, see Bible Translating, 243-46.
For the Treatment of a phrase such as which means, see 3.17.
Little girl is very frequently translated by the same term as is used for child in verses 39 and 40. It is most important that one not employ a word which would imply a person of different age or maturity status.
Arise should be interpreted in this context as ‘stand up’ (see the following verse). It is quite unnecessary, and misleading to translate ‘arise from the dead,’ for note that Jesus was sincerely trying to understate the extent of the miracle (see verse 39).
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 .