Exegesis:

prōtokathedrias en tais sunagōgais ‘the chief seats in the synagogues,’ ‘the places of importance in the synagogues’: it is explained that in the synagogue such seats were to be found in front of the Ark (which contained the sacred scrolls), facing the people, reserved for the scribes and other dignitaries.

sunagogē (cf. 1.21) ‘synagogue.’

prōtoklisias en tois deipnois ‘the chief couches at the banquets,’ ‘the places of honor at the banquets’: these were next to the host (for an instance of this cf. Lk. 14.7).

deipnon (cf. 6.21) ‘reception,’ ‘formal dinner,’ ‘banquet.’

Translation:

This verse is a continuation of the construction begun in 12.38, but it is often not possible to employ a series of relative clauses. Accordingly, one must generally break the sentence at this point and reintroduce the subject, e.g. ‘they like the best seats.’ ‘Best,’ however, should not refer to the quality of the seats, but to the distinction and prestige accompanying the position, e.g. ‘the most important seats.’

For synagogues see 1.21.

At feasts may require expansion to ‘when they attend banquets,’ or ‘when they are feasting,’ since feasts may be translatable only by what is a verb, not a noun.

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 .

Text:

After aggelous ‘angels’ Textus Receptus and Kilpatrick add autou ‘his,’ which is omitted by all other modern editions of the Greek text.

There is considerable doubt concerning the authenticity of autou ‘his’ after eklektous ‘elect’: it is omitted by Tischendorf and Soden; placed in brackets by Westcott and Hort, Nestle, and Taylor; included by Textus Receptus, Vogels, Souter, Lagrange, Kilpatrick, and Merk.

Exegesis:

apostelei (cf. 1.2) ‘he will send’: in the context, the subject is ‘the Son of man’ of the preceding verse.

tous aggelous (cf. 1.2) ‘the angels,’ ‘the heavenly messengers.’

The rest of the verse reflects O.T. concepts and language such as found in Zech. 2.10 and Deut. 30.4.

kai episunaxei (cf. 1.33) ‘and he will gather,’ ‘and he will bring together (into one group).’

tous eklektous (cf. v. 20) ‘the elect,’ ‘the chosen ones.’

ek tōn tessarōn anemōn ‘from the four winds’: this phrase indicates the four points of the compass, meaning (in popular language) ‘from the four corners of the earth’ (cf. in 1 Chr. 9.24, in the Septuagint, the description of the four sides of the Temple, kata tous tessaras anemous ēsan hai pulai ‘the gates were on the four sides’ – literally, ‘according to the four winds’). The phrase appears not only in the Bible but in the papyri as well. Revised Standard Version‘s literal translation ‘from the four winds’ is likely to be misleading, since in current English the idiom does not denote the four points of the compass (cf. The Modern Speech New Testament ‘from north, south, east and west’; Williams ‘from the four points of the compass’).

ap’ akrou gēs heōs akrou ouranou ‘from the extremity of the earth to the extremity of heaven.’ This phrase is unique and offers some difficulty. It appears to be a combination of two phrases often used in the O.T.: ap’ akrou tēs gēs heōs akrou tēs gēs ‘from one extremity of the earth to the other’ (Deut. 13.8, Jer. 12.12), and ap’ akrou tou ouranou heōs akrou tou ouranou ‘from one extremity of heaven to the other’ (Deut. 4.32; 30.4; Ps. 18(19).7; cf. Mt. 24.31). It would mean, therefore, ‘from one end of the world to the other’ (cf. Bengel: “from the uttermost part of the heaven (sky) and earth in the east, even to the uttermost part of the heaven and earth in the west”). Manson confesses ignorance of the precise meaning of the phrase and conjectures it originally meant ‘from one end of the earth to the other.’

The concept of the universe which underlies this idiom, in conformance with Jewish cosmogony, was that of the heaven as a half circle overarching the earth, the two meeting at the two extremes.

Some, however, take the phrase to mean, ‘he will gather the elect … from the highest (or ‘lowest,’ according to others) point of earth and carry them to the heights of heaven’ (to which 1 Thess. 4.17 lends some support).

Translation:

For angels see 1.13.

Gather should be rendered by an expression applicable to persons, not to things, e.g. ‘he will cause to come together’ or ‘he will cause to be led together.’ Literally, the angels are the ones which evidently are to perform this task of bringing the elect together, but the syntactic form of the expression would indicate that the Son of man is the cause, since the third person singular subject of the verb is the same as for the verb send.

His elect are ‘his chosen ones’ or ‘the people he has chosen.’

Four winds provides no end of trouble, especially since only rarely can this idiom be translated literally. In Amganad Ifugao, for example, one speaks only of two winds, and ‘winds’ are never used as reference points for directions. Accordingly, one must say ‘from north, east, south, and west.’ In Cashibo-Cacataibo one may translate ‘from all parts.’ In San Blas Kuna the equivalent is ‘from the four directions,’ and in Piro one may use ‘from the four sides.’

From the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven is admittedly one of the most difficult idioms to translate in the entire gospel of Mark, for frankly, as noted above, we do not know precisely what is meant, since we do not know exactly how this expression is relatable to the cosmogony underlying Scriptural usage. It is impossible to translate end as a ‘point’ or ‘projection.’ In some instances this passage has been rendered as ‘from wherever they are, all over the earth and all over heaven’ and ‘from all over earth to all over heaven.’ However, these translations imply gathering the elect together from heaven, a meaning which is not in the original. A more accurate rendering would be ‘from the limit of the earth in one direction to the limit of the earth in the other direction.’

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 .

Exegesis:

The narrative portion of this verse is built upon a succession of three participles and three finite verbs: esthiontōn … labōn … eulogēsas eklasen kai edōken … kai eipen ‘while (they) were eating … (he) taking … blessing he broke and gave … and said.’

labōn (cf. 6.41; 8.6; 14.23) ‘taking’: from the table, where it would be with the food.

eulogēsas (cf. 6.41) ‘blessing’: as noticed in the study of the verb in 6.41, eulogeō and eucharisteō (next verse) both refer to the same action of ‘blessing God,’ i.e. praising God, being both the equivalent of the Hebrew barak. The Jewish “blessing” which was spoken over the bread was, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, king of the world, who causest bread to come forth from the earth” (Jeremias).

eklasen (cf. 8.6) ‘he broke (into pieces).’

labete ‘(you) take (it),’ i.e. the piece of bread which Jesus gave to each of them.

touto estin to sōma mou ‘this is my body’: whatever interpretation be given to this saying, the translation must faithfully represent the plain meaning of the words. Such translations as ‘this means my body’ (Moffatt), or ‘this represents my body’ (Williams) are not to be recommended.

Translation:

He should be rendered as ‘Jesus’ in a number of languages since the immediately preceding third person singular referent is the one who is to betray the Son of man.

For bless see 6.41 and 11.9, 10.

Take may require an object, e.g. ‘take this’ or ‘take these pieces of bread.’

Body must not be translated as ‘corpse.’ The closest equivalent in some languages is ‘my meat and bones’ (which is equivalent to body) or ‘myself,’ also used to identify the living body in which one dwells.

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 .

Exegesis:

heōs esō eis tēn aulēn literally ‘until within into the courtyard.’

aulē (14.66; 15.14) ‘inner court,’ ‘courtyard’: the enclosed area, open to the sky, and surrounded on the sides by buildings or porches. King James Version ‘palace’ is misleading (cf. Gould).

ēn sugkathēmenos (only here in Mark; cf. kathēmai 2.6) ‘he was sitting with.’

tōn hupēretōn (14.65) ‘the servants,’ ‘the helpers’: in all probability these were members of the Temple guard; therefore, as Revised Standard Version has it, ‘the guards.’

thermainomenos (14.67) ‘warming himself’: the auxiliary ēn ‘he was’ goes with this participle as well as with the previous one, ‘he was sitting … and warming himself.’

pros to phōs literally ‘at the light’: here, however, the phrase means ‘at the (light of the) fire’ (cf. Moulton & Milligan for this use of phōs ‘light’). It has been suggested that ‘light’ is here a mistranslation of the unpointed Hebrew word ʾwr which could be pointed ʾor ‘light’ or ʾur ‘fire.’

For apo makrothen ‘from afar’ cf. 5.6; akoloutheō ‘follow’ cf. 1.18.

Translation:

Followed him must not be rendered so as to indicate Peter’s favorable intent, but his evident distance from Jesus. In general one cannot use the same verb as may be employed, for example, in the words of Jesus follow me (1.17). At this point Peter was following along after the crowd, not in accompaniment with Jesus.

Right into … may be rendered as ‘he went right on into,’ for ‘at a distance’ and ‘right into’ may be difficult to combine in a single clause in a receptor language.

In some languages one cannot speak of ‘courtyard of the high priest,’ but only of ‘courtyard of the buildings of the high priest,’ since the area surrounded by buildings is essentially relatable only to the buildings and they, in turn, to the high priest.

In most languages there is no problem involved in the description of Peter’s being with the guards and warming himself, for it is implied that the guards were also warming themselves. In some languages, however, the contrast of pronominal construction is so great that Peter’s action would be interpreted as being in contrast with the others. Hence, in Isthmus Zapotec one must say ‘he with them was warming’ thus including Peter.

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 .

Exegesis:

boulomenos (only here in Mark) ‘desiring,’ ‘wishing,’ ‘wanting.’

to hikanon poiēsai is a Latinism, satisfacere, ‘satisfy.’

phragellōsas (only here in Mark) ‘having flogged,’ ‘having scourged’ (cf. Latin flagellare). The aorist participle here indicates action antecedent to that of the main verb paredōken ‘he delivered.’ The word should not be translated in such a way as to imply that Pilate personally flogged Jesus: instead of ‘having scourged Jesus’ (cf. Goodspeed). This flogging, or scourging, was extremely severe, inflicted only on slaves or provincials, never on Roman citizens, and applied to those who were condemned to death (cf. Swete).

Translation:

Satisfy the crowd may be translated as ‘make the crowd happy’ or ‘give the crowd what they wanted.’

For released see Mark 15.6.

Scourged Jesus is better rendered in many languages ‘caused Jesus to be whipped’ or ‘caused Jesus to be beaten with whips.’

Delivered him to be crucified is a highly condensed expression, requiring some more specific identification of participants and events in some languages, e.g. ‘handed Jesus over to the soldiers in order that they would nail him to a cross.’ In many languages one can not ‘hand a person over’ without specifying to whom. Moreover, the following expression of ‘crucify’ may require an identified grammatical subject.

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 .

Exegesis:

etheōroun (cf. 3.11) ‘they were observing,’ ‘they were watching.’

pou (cf. 14.12) ‘where.’

tetheitai ‘he has been placed,’ ‘he has been put.’

Translation:

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses may be translated as ‘Mary who was from Magdala town and Mary who was Joses’ mother.’

He was laid, if changed into an active form, may be translated as ‘they put him’ (or ‘the body’).

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 .