complete verse (Mark 13:34)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 13:34:

  • Uma: “When I come back, the event will be like this parable. A house owner intended to go to a far city. Before he left, he ordered his servants to take care of his house, each one he gave work to. To the one who watched the door, he said: ‘You (sing.) be on the watch!'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “It’s parable is this, a certain man went to a different country. When he was about to leave, he entrusted his house to his servants. Each one was given his work to do. And the watchman at the door he told not to be careless.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “For I am like a person who went on a journey who did not say when he would return. He told his servants to watch his possessions. He gave each one of them work to do while he was away. And he told the person he left to watch the door that he should not go to sleep.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “I can be parabled to a man who prepares to go to a far country. He will entrust his house to his servants, and assign (lit. cause-to-be-done) to each one his proper work. He will also command the guard that he not be sleeping.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “For an illustration of this is a person who went on journey to a far place. He left the responsibility for his household to his slaves, each being given by him their own responsibility/task, and he told the guard at the entrance emphatically to be always ready.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Mark 13:34

Exegesis:

hōs anthrōpos apodēmos ‘(It is) like a man (who is going) away on a trip.’

apodēmos (only here in the N.T.; cf. apodēmeō, 12.1) is an adjective meaning ‘away on a trip,’ ‘away from one’s country.’

apheis (cf. 2.5) ‘leaving’: the participle is equivalent to the relative phrase hos aphēken ‘who left.’

doulois (cf. 10.44) ‘slaves.’

tēn exousian (cf. 1.22) ‘the authority,’ ‘the power’: here, as Revised Standard Version has it, to give the authority to the slaves means to put them in charge (cf. Goodspeed, Moffatt). Lagrange comments that ‘the authority’ given the slaves is a certain degree of autonomy: “each one will be free to do his own job in his own way.”

hekastō (only here in Mark) ‘to each one,’ ‘to every one.’

to ergon (14.6) ‘the work,’ ‘the task,’ ‘the job’: Arndt & Gingrich ‘assigned to each one his task.’ The word ergon is in the accusative case, the object of the participle dous ‘giving.’

tō thurōrō (only here in Mark) ‘to the doorkeeper,’ ‘to the gate guard.’

eneteilato hina grēgorē ‘he commanded that he be on watch,’ ‘he ordered (him) to remain alert.’

entellomai (cf. 10.3) ‘command,’ ‘order.’

hina ‘that’ denotes the content of the order, not its purpose (cf. 3.9).

grēgoreō (13.35, 37; 14.34, 37, 38) ‘be awake,’ ‘watch,’ ‘be alert’: the verb is formed from the perfect form of egeirō ‘rise.’

Translation:

It is like is a very indefinite type of transitional phrase from the preceding verse, and as such must in some languages be adapted to other syntactic and lexical requirements, e.g. ‘in the same way a man went on a journey…’ (South Bolivian Quechua), or ‘all this is like what happens when a man…’ or ‘this is just like the experience of a man who….’

Because of the relative complexity of the subject-predicate constructions in this verse, some major breaks are often required, e.g. ‘this is just like what happens when a man goes on a journey; he leaves home and gives special authority to his servants. Each has his own work. He commands the man who guards the door to be on the look-out continually.’

Puts his servants in charge is often equivalent to ‘gives his servants responsibility for everything,’ i.e. for everything about the estate.

Each with his work is translatable as ‘he gives each servant a special work to do.’

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 .