Translation commentary on Mark 15:37

Exegesis:

apheis (cf. 2.5) ‘letting out,’ ‘letting loose.’

phōnēn megalēn (cf. v. 34) ‘a loud cry.’

exepneusen (15.39) ‘he expired,’ ‘he died.’

Translation:

Uttered a loud cry may be translated ‘shouted loud’ or ‘cried out hard.’

Breathed his last is a good idiomatic equivalent of the Greek, but it is not literally translatable into many languages. ‘He died’ is a more frequent parallel.

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 .

SIL Translator's Notes on Mark 15:37

15:37

But Jesus let out a loud cry: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Jesus let out a loud cry means that Jesus shouted. This does not mean that Jesus wept. We are not told what he shouted, but he probably shouted words and not just a noise. For example:

Jesus shouted (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
cried out loudly
-or-
spoke/said something in a loud voice

and breathed His last: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates with the English idiom and breathed His last means “Jesus died.” For example, the Contemporary English Version says:

and then died

Many languages have a polite expression, an idiom, or a euphemism for death. You may want to use such an expression here.

Paragraph 15:38–39

© 2008 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.