Exegesis:

Some expositors attempt to alleviate the difficulties of the text by rearranging the clauses in vv. 11-13; others, however, by a device available also to the translator, make a question out of the first phrase in v. 12: ‘Does Elijah come first and restore all things?.’ The resultant meaning of the whole statement would then be: ‘If – as the scribes claim – Elijah is to come first and restore all things, how then is it written that the Son of man should suffer much and be despised?’ For another punctuation of the clauses cf. Translator’s New Testament.

Elias men elthōn prōton apokathistanei panta ‘Elijah comes first and restores all things’: on the role of Elijah as precursor to the Messiah, cf. Malachi 4.5-6.

elthōn … apokathistanei ‘coming … he restores’: the time element of the two verbs is determined by the tense of the main verb, ‘he comes and restores.’ The present tense is not to be understood as meaning ‘he is coming and restores’; it is a statement of fact in which the time element does not appear: ‘Elijah, in fact, comes and restores’ – as the scribes say.

apokathistēmi (cf. 3.5) ‘restore,’ i.e. to its original condition or order.

pōs gegraptai epi ton huion tou anthrōpou hina ‘how does it stand written concerning the Son of man that.’

graphō (cf. 1.2) ‘write.’

epi ‘about,’ ‘with reference to.’

hina ‘that’ of content, not of purpose.

polla pathē kai exoudenēthē ‘he should suffer much and be treated with contempt.’

polla paschō (cf. 8.31) ‘suffer much,’ ‘suffer many things.’

exoudeneō (only here in Mark) ‘treat with contempt,’ ‘count as of no value.’

Translation:

Said to them may be rendered as ‘answered them,’ depending on the receptor language usage.

Does come first introduces certain problems because of the tense form, which is present in English, but generally understood in this sequence as future. However, in verse 13, Jesus makes it quite clear that this present tense form (with future implications), is really not to be understood in the strictly temporal sense at all, but as a required event, which is entirely relative in time. In some languages the closest equivalent is ‘must come.’

Restore may be rendered as ‘to make everything new again’ (Amganad Ifugao), ‘to return it,’ implying to its former condition (Ilocano), ‘to make all things sure,’ in the sense of establishing or rectifying (Southern Subanen), and ‘to set everything up’ (Javanese).

As in other instances of the use of the Son of man the pronominal reference may need to be first person when Jesus is speaking, ‘written of me the Son of man, that I must suffer….’

Suffer many things may be ‘suffer much.’

Treated with contempt may be translated as ‘scorn,’ ‘deride,’ ‘count as nothing,’ ‘be said that he is nothing.’

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 .