Text:

Instead of kai ‘and’ (at the beginning of v. 19) of all modern editions of the Greek text, Textus Receptus has ho de Iēsous ‘and Jesus.’

Exegesis:

ouk aphēken (cf. 2.5) ‘he did not allow,’ ‘he did not permit.’

hupage eis ton oikon sou (cf. 2.11) ‘go home.’

pros tous sous ‘to your own family (or people)’ (cf. Translator’s New Testament), rather than ‘friends’ (Revised Standard Version).

hosa ho kurios soi pepoiēken kai ēleēsen se ‘how much the Lord has done for you an (how) he had pity on you.’

hosa (cf. 3.8) is here adverbial ‘how much,’ ‘how greatly’ (modifying both ‘has done’ and ‘had pity’), rather than adjectival ‘how many things’ (cf. Lagrange).

pepoiēken kai ēleēsen ‘he has done and he showed mercy’: the proper distinction should be observed, where language allows, in translating the two tenses, the perfect of the first verb and the aorist of the second verb (cf. Taylor). Revised Standard Version ‘he has had mercy’ is not fully satisfactory translation of ēleēsen.

kērussein (cf. 1.4) ‘proclaim.’

en tē Dekapolei (7.31) ‘in the Decapolis’: a league originally consisting of 10 cities, east of the Jordan. It is not necessary to suppose that the man proclaimed his cure in all the cities, but simply that he announced it in the region of the Decapolis.

kai pantes ethaumazon ‘and all men (who heard of it) marveled.’

thaumazō (6.6; 15.5, 44) ‘marvel,’ ‘wonder.’

Translation:

Probably the use of ‘Jesus’ as subject of ‘refused’ is justified, in order to avoid ambiguity.

Your friends, as a rendering of the Greek tous sous, is equivalent in many languages to ‘your clan,’ implying the man’s family, both immediate and extended.

Lord is here undoubtedly a reference to God, but probably employed purposely by Mark with a kind of double reference, to God and to Christ. For a discussion of problems relative to Lord see 1.3, but note also the fact that in some languages ‘Lord’ must always be possessed. A man cannot be ‘lord’ without being ‘lord of someone.’ This means that in a verse such as this one must translate ‘how much your Lord has done.’

Mercy is not a process which is easy to describe, for it involves a psychological state and an overt response in the form of behavior. As in the case of so many related words, e.g. love, kindness, grace, and goodness, this term likewise has a number of different types of equivalents, of which the most common are: (1) those based on the quality of heart, or other psychological center, e.g. ‘tender heart’ (Ngäbere), ‘white heart’ (Miskito), ‘what arises from a kind heart’ (Amganad Ifugao), and ‘purity of heart’ (Vai); (2) those which introduce the concept of weeping or extreme sorrow, e.g. ‘his abdomen weeps’ (Conob), ‘to cry inside’ (Kipsigis), ‘to cry continually within’ (Shilluk), and ‘to feel great sorrow,’ with the connotation of being about to cry (Navajo); (3) those which involve willingness to look upon and recognize the condition of others, e.g. ‘to see misery’ (Kpelle) and ‘to know misery’ (Toro So Dogon); and (4) those which involve a variety of intense feelings, e.g. ‘to be in pain for’ (Western Highland Purepecha), ‘to be very sorry for’ (Mixteco Alto) and ‘to have increasing love for’ (Mezquital Otomi). In one language, Tepeuxila Cuicatec, mercy is closely identified with grace as ‘showing undeserved goodness.’

Decapolis may be rendered ‘in the country of ten cities’ or ‘in the region called Ten Cities.’

The type of marveling referred to in this verse may be described in different ways, e.g. ‘listened quietly’ (Central Tarahumara), ‘they forgot listening’ – in which the meaning is that they were so absorbed in what they heard that they forgot everything else (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), and ‘it was considered very strange by them’ (Tzeltal).

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 .