The quotation from Isa. 40.3, does not reproduce the Hebrew text word for word.

Exegesis:

phōnē boōntos ‘(the) voice of one shouting.’ There is no article before phōnē ‘voice’: the participle boōntos ‘shouting,’ however, makes ‘voice’ definite. The sense, however, can be expressed in English by the absence of any article, definite or indefinite: ‘Voice of one who shouts….’

phōnē (1.11, 26; 5.7; 9.7; 15.34, 37) ‘sound,’ ‘voice,’ ‘cry,’ ‘call.’

boaō (15.34) ‘cry aloud,’ ‘shout.’ The present participle here could be masculine or neuter; the context clearly shows it to be masculine, i.e. ‘someone (is) shouting,’ ‘someone is calling in the desert!’ The Revised Standard Version crying should not be understood in the sense of ‘weeping.’

en tē erēmō ‘in the desert’: this clause is connected in the Septuagint with the preceding phrase, although the Hebrew text connects it to the following verb ‘prepare.’ If necessary, a complete sentence may be constructed: ‘It is the voice of one who in the wilderness shouts….’

erēmos (1.4, 12, 13, 35, 45; 6.31, 32, 35) ‘wilderness,’ ‘wild country.’ The word does not necessarily stand for an arid desert, such as exists in Africa or Asia: it means an uninhabited territory, ‘wild open country’ (Grant), in contrast with the cultivated and inhabited sections of the land: cf. American “Bad Lands.”

hetoimasate (10.40; 14.12, 15, 16; 15.1) ‘prepare,’ ‘keep in readiness.’ Moulton & Milligan give examples of the word used almost as a technical term for preparations in view of an approaching visit. The aorist imperative of the verb carries overtones of urgency: ‘Prepare now!’ The plural shows that the order is directed not to an individual but to a group, to the people or nation to whom the Lord is about to come.

tēn hodon kuriou ‘the road of the Lord,’ i.e. ‘the road over which the Lord shall come.’

kurios ‘Lord’: the word appears 18 times in Mark, with the following meanings: (1) ‘the Lord’ meaning ‘God’ in 5.19; 13.20 and in the quotations from the O.T. in 11.9; 12.11; 12.29-30 and 12.36-37 (in the last passage there are two different “Lords,” one of whom is God and the other the Messiah – cf. Exegesis of the passage); (2) ‘master,’ ‘owner’ in 2.28; 11.3; 12.9; 13.35; (3) in the vocative, ‘sir’ in 7.28; and (4) ‘the Lord’ referring to Jesus in 16.19-20. In the present instance, in the original O.T. passage ‘the Lord’ refers, of course, to Yahweh: here in Mark, however, the term probably refers to (the Lord) Jesus (cf. Lagrange who points out that in the next clause the Septuagint ‘of our God’ has been substituted, in Mark, by ‘his’ – i.e. the Lord’s; Black: “The Lord is Jesus, announced as Christ, the Son of God, and it is His paths that John the Forerunner summons men to make straight”).

eutheias poieite tas tribous autou ‘make ye his paths straight.’

eutheias ‘straight’: the thought is not simply that of eliminating curves, but of doing everything necessary to make travel easy and rapid (cf. Lk. 3.4-5 where the quotation from Isaiah is continued). Cf. Le Nouveau Testament. Version Synodale aplanissez.

tribos (only here in Mark) ‘a beaten track,’ ‘path’: from the verb tribō ‘to beat.’

Translation:

Perhaps the most difficult problem in this verse is the use of the expression ‘voice of one crying …’ introducing direct discourse. In most languages it is quite easy to say, ‘a man cries out with his voice…’ (note this is the ‘crying out’ of shouting, not the ‘crying’ of weeping), but to say that ‘a voice cries out…’ may involve complications for the reader. Where, of course, one can reproduce the Semitic expression intact, one should do so; if not, one may employ a kind of indirect equivalent ‘there is the voice of a man crying in…’ (Balinese) or ‘he is the person whose voice is rising in…’ (Kpelle); ‘the voice of a man (someone), who cries’ (Toraja-Sa’dan, Pamona, Indonesian).

The wilderness was essentially an uninhabited place. It is also true that it was lacking in vegetation, but this was a secondary feature and in many instances must not be introduced if one is to make sense. For example, if in some languages spoken in tropical areas of the world one translates ‘a place without vegetation,’ almost the only meaning it can have is ‘a recently prepared field’ or ‘the open space in the middle of the village.’ In Shipibo-Conibo the equivalent of wilderness is ‘where no house is,’ in Bandi the term is literally ‘grasslands’ (no one lives there), in Indonesian ‘the uninhabited land in between the inhabited areas,’ and in Kpelle it is ‘rocky region.’ One must, however, be sure not to introduce some contradictory term at this point. For example, one can often use ‘where no one is’ (or ‘exists’) as an equivalent of wilderness (Mark 1.12), but in this verse ‘to shout where there was no one’ would not make much sense.

In Greek the terms translated ‘prepare’ in verses 2 and 3 are different, but the meaning is essentially the same: ‘to make ready,’ ‘fix up’ (not ‘to construct a new road’).

The expression way of the Lord involves a subtle ambiguity, for if translated literally into some languages, e.g. Pohnpeian, it would mean ‘the path on his land,’ obviously not what the prophet was talking about. This must be the ‘path which the Lord is to use’ or ‘the way for the Lord.’

Though Lord in the O.T. source of this verse refers to Jehovah (Yahweh), it is necessary here to use a term which identifies the Lord Jesus Christ. N.T. translations should preserve a calculated ambiguity at this point, for this was precisely what the N.T. writers did.

There are few terms more difficult to render adequately than Lord. The Greek term kurios had a range of meaning in secular usage all the way from a title for the emperor to a polite ‘sir,’ used in speaking to one of higher social rank. In the Septuagint kurios translates Hebrew Adonai and Yahweh, and this same usage comes into the N.T., with additional specific application of kurios to Jesus Christ. In translating into another language it is generally quite impossible to find an exact equivalent for this entire range of meaning. The alternatives are usually (1) a term which is an honorific title of respect for a high-ranking person and (2) a word meaning ‘boss,’ ‘master,’ or ‘chief.’ There are certain inherent dangers in either of these types of terms. In the first place, a word which is primarily a title for a highly prestigeful person will deprive the Scriptures of the emphasis on a man’s immediate loyalty to and dependence upon a ‘master’ or ‘chief’; and as a result the ‘Lord’ will imply a distant, impersonal relationship. On the other hand, a word which denotes essentially a ‘boss’ or ‘chief’ may have connotations of resistance and disfavor. On the whole, however, it has generally seemed better to employ a word of the second category, in order to emphasize the immediate personal relationship, and then by context to build into the word the prestigeful character, since its very association with Jesus Christ will tend to accomplish this purpose. If, however, a word of the first category is employed, it is sometimes impossible to teach the personal relationship, for the cultural overtones of the word place too much distance between the ‘lord’ and the people. The following terms, as indicated in the literal translations (and explanations where necessary) indicate certain of the major types of solutions to this problem of finding an adequate term for Lord: ‘the one who has charge’ (Navajo), ‘person-owner,’ a term which may be applied to a chief (Kpelle), ‘the one who commands’ (Guerrero Amuzgo), ‘the big one,’ used commonly of one in authority (Piro), ‘the one who has the head’ in other words, ‘the leader’ (More), ‘chief’ (Uduk), ‘the one who owns us’ (or ‘commands us’) (Central Pame), and ‘the great one over all’ (San Blas Kuna).

One additional problem is involved in the choice of a term for Lord, namely the fact that in many languages it is always possessed. That is to say, a person who is a chief or leader is always related to a particular group, and hence in speaking of such an individual, the grammatical structure requires that one specify whether this person is ‘our chief,’ ‘their chief,’ ‘his chief,’ etc. In this particular context one would need to use ‘our chief’ (inclusive, if the inclusive-exclusive contrast should exist in the language) but in each context the appropriate form would need to be selected.

Note: Many languages possess for the first person plural two forms: (1) the inclusive ‘we’ meaning the speaker and those spoken to, and (2) the exclusive ‘we’ identifying only the speaker and certain others, but specifically excluding the audience. Failure to recognize these problems adequately has led to numerous serious mistakes in translating (see Bible Translating, p. 256).

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 .