Exegesis:
oude tēn graphēn tautēn anegnōte; ‘have you not read even this scripture?’: in such a context oude means ‘not even’ (cf. Lagrange ‘at least this scripture?’) rather than ‘not’ (cf. Moffatt). The scripture quoted is Ps. 118.22-23, quoted exactly as the Septuagint translates it.
graphē (only here in singular; in 12.24; 14.49 in plural) ‘writing,’ ‘(passage of) scripture’: the singular refers to a particular passage in the O.T., in accordance with normal use of the word in the N.T.
anaginōskō (cf. 2.25) ‘read.’
lithon (cf. 5.5) ‘stone’: Revised Standard Version ‘the very stone’ carries somewhat more emphasis than the Greek allows; ‘the stone,’ or, at the most, ‘that stone,’ is an accurate translation. The word lithon is in the accusative case, by attraction to the case of the relative pronoun hon ‘which,’ the object of the verb apedokimasan ‘they rejected,’ a construction common in Greek.
apedokimasan (cf. 8.31) ‘they rejected,’ ‘they considered worthless.’
hoi oikodomountes (cf. 12.1) ‘the builders.’
egenēthē eis kephalēn gōnias ‘was the cornerstone,’ ‘became the head of the corner’: egenēthē eis is the literal Septuagint translation of the Hebrew phrase hayah le and means simply ‘was,’ ‘became’ (cf. 10.8).
kephalē gōnias (only here in Mark) is either ‘the cornerstone’ which holds together the walls, or ‘the keystone,’ ‘the capstone’ which is placed above the door. Most translations have ‘cornerstone.’ Revised Standard Version (following American Standard Version) ‘the head of the corner,’ here and elsewhere in the N.T. where the passage is quoted (parallels Mt. 21.42, Lk. 20.17; Acts 4.11, 1 Pet. 2.7), is inconsistent with its translation of the O.T. passage (Ps. 118.22), which appears as ‘chief cornerstone.’ The cognate akrogōniaios, the Septuagint translation in Isa. 28.16, is found in Eph. 2.20 and 1 Pet. 2.6, the Revised Standard Version translation in all three passages being ‘cornerstone.’ If a distinction is to be maintained between kephalē gōnias and akrogōniaios in the N.T., ‘chief cornerstone’ should be used for the former and ‘cornerstone’ for the latter. ‘The head of the corner’ may be virtually meaningless.
para kuriou egeneto hautē ‘this came from the Lord,’ ‘this was the Lord’s doing.’
kuriou ‘of the Lord,’ i.e. ‘of Yahweh,’ ‘of God’ (cf. 1.3).
hautē ‘this’: the feminine gender is due to the Septuagint literal translation of the Hebrew feminine demonstrative zoʾth which is used for the neuter, and means, in this passage, ‘this thing,’ ‘this matter’ (Field gives other Septuagint passages where the same thing occurs). Gould, with little probability, refers hautē to kephalē gōnias ‘cornerstone’ (cf. Lagrange, Swete, Taylor).
thaumastē (only here in Mark) ‘marvelous,’ ‘wonderful.’
en ophthalmois hēmōn ‘in our sight,’ i.e. ‘in our judgment.’
Translation:
For the treatment of a question implying a positive answer, as for example, have you not read this scripture, see 11.17, but in this particular context the problem is somewhat more difficult because of the long direct discourse which follows and which cannot be combined in some languages with the question. Accordingly, one may need to employ certain close equivalents, e.g. ‘Have you read this scripture; I am sure you have’ (which implies the same as the negative form in English which anticipates a positive answer and as such is really a strong affirmative of the statement), or ‘You have read this scripture surely?,’ or ‘Have you not read this scripture – yes?’ (or ‘no,’ depending upon patterns of agreement). Whether the punctuation of the question should be placed at the end of the direct discourse will depend entirely upon the syntactic patterns of the receptor language and the traditional practices.
Scripture may be translated as ‘the writing’ (Yucateco), ‘the sacred writing,’ in which ‘sacred,’ as a kind of classifier, is required in order to indicate the religious nature of the writing (Ngäbere), and ‘this writing of God,’ without implying that God literally wrote out the document (Tzotzil, San Blas Kuna, Eastern Highland Otomi).
Builders may be translated in some languages as ‘house-makers’ (Barrow Eskimo).
Rejected may be objective in the sense of ‘cast aside,’ but the more accurate rendering is a subjective one ‘regarded as worthless’ or ‘thought was not of value’ (or ‘was useless’).
Head of the corner should not be translated literally, unless by some strange coincidence it is a meaningful expression. As noted above, the meaning is either corner stone or cap stone. As the first meaning one may have ‘ear of the house’ (Conob) or ‘the strongest stone in the corner’ (Tzotzil). In other instances, translators have chosen the meaning of cap stone or keystone, and translated this as ‘the top stone’ or ‘the high stone.’ However, an ambiguous expression, which at the same time conveys the significance of the passage, may emphasize the relative importance of the stone, e.g. ‘the most important stone’ (Huastec), ‘surpasses in importance to hold up the house’ (Yaka), ‘most valued stone,’ with the meaning of ‘most useful’ (Eastern Highland Otomi).
Many languages distinguish two words for ‘corner,’ an inside and an outside corner, e.g. Spanish. Here the outside corner is the one involved.
This was the Lord’s doing is a relatively difficult expression to translate literally into other languages, but it may be transformed into a direct construction, ‘the Lord has done this.’
For the use of Lord see 1.3. Despite the fact that this is a reference to Lord as God, it is important to preserve the ambiguity of the N.T. in using a word which is also the common designation of Jesus as Lord.
Marvelous in our eyes must usually be changed to a direct construction, e.g. ‘as we see it we are amazed’ (Navajo) or ‘we see it as a big thing’ (Eastern Highland Otomi). Eyes is only an indirect way of speaking about ‘seeing.’
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 .