Exegesis:
dei (9.11; 13.7, 10, 14; 14.31) ‘it is necessary,’ ‘it is needed’: the verb denotes compulsion of some sort. What this compulsion is only the total context can indicate. A translation should not convey the idea that an impersonal fate or destiny is the determining factor, as though ‘the Son of man is fated to….’ Rather this is the God-appointed mission of the Son of man. Lagrange: une nécessité, imposée d’en haut.
ton huion tou anthrōpou (cf. 2.10) ‘the Son of man.’
polla pathein (cf. 5.26) ‘to suffer much’ (Translator’s New Testament) or ‘to suffer many things’ (Revised Standard Version).
apodokimasthēnai (12.10) ‘be rejected,’ ‘be spurned.’
hupo tōn presbuterōn kai tōn archiereōn kai tōn grammateōn (cf. 7.3) ‘by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes’: the three groups which composed the Sanhedrin (cf. Lagrange).
hoi presbuteroi (cf. 7.3) ‘the elders’: these were laymen.
hoi archiereis (10.33; 11.18, 27; 14.1, 10, 43, 53, 55; 15.1, 3, 10, 11, 31; cf. 2.26) ‘the chief priests’: high priests, present and past, and members of the high-priestly families in Jerusalem.
hoi grammateis (cf. 1.22) ‘the scribes,’ ‘the interpreters of the Law.’
apoktanthēnai (cf. 3.4) ‘to be killed.’
meta treis hēmeras (9.31; 10.34; cf. dia triōn hēmerōn 14.58; en trisin hēmerais 15.29) ‘after three days’: as Field has abundantly demonstrated meta treis hēmeras means ‘on the third day after this one,’ what we should call ‘the day after tomorrow,’ meaning exactly the same thing as tē tritē hēmera ‘on the third day’ in Matthew and Luke.
anastēnai (cf. 1.35) ‘rise’: here meaning ‘rise again,’ ‘rise from the dead.’ With this meaning the verb anistēmi appears in the active voice further in 9.9, 10, 31; 10.34; 12.23; 16.9 (for egeirō ‘rise’ with this meaning in Mark – 7 times – cf. 1.31).
Translation:
Teach them that … may require adjustment to the direct form, ‘teach them, The Son of man….’
For Son of man see 2.10, but note also that in languages in which one cannot speak of himself in the third person, it is usually necessary to add ‘I,’ e.g. ‘teach them, I who am the Son of man….’ Without such an addition the only alternative for the reader is to assume that Jesus was speaking about someone other than himself.
Suffer many things may be, as in Tzeltal, ‘go through much trouble.’ In other languages the equivalent may be ‘endure much pain’ or ‘hurt much’; cf. Toraja-Sa’dan ‘feel much pain’; Indonesian ‘taste much suffering’; Batak Toba ‘his suffering would be great.’
In some languages there are problems resulting from the fact that the shifts from active (suffer) to passive (be rejected and be killed) and back again to active (rise again) cannot be employed in a single sentence. This may mean either changes from passives to actives, with resulting problems of shifts in subject expressions, or the splitting of this sentence into several clause units, e.g. ‘he began to teach them, The Son of man must suffer much. The elders and the chief priests and the scribes will repudiate him and kill him. On the third day he will come to life again.’
The elders are either ‘the old men’ or ‘the important men.’ In most languages there are convenient terms for the elder statesmen – the counselors of the tribes and henchmen of the chief; so Toraja-Sa’dan ‘those to whom one says father.’
For priests see 1.40. The chief priests are ‘the important priests,’ ‘the big priests,’ or ‘the priests who have the power.’ For scribes see 1.22.
Rejected may be translated as ‘repudiated,’ ‘denounced,’ or ‘refused,’ depending upon the closest cultural equivalent.
Rise again cannot be translated literally in many languages, for the meaning is essentially figurative, i.e. ‘to come to life again,’ ‘to live again,’ or ‘to arise from among the dead.’
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 .