Translation commentary on Mark 8:26

Text:

Instead of mēde eis tēn kōmēn eiselthēs ‘do not even enter the village’ of the great majority of modern editions of the Greek text, Taylor and Kilpatrick have mēdeni eipēs eis tēn kōmēn ‘do not tell anyone in the village.’

At the end of the verse Textus Receptus adds mēde eipēs tini en tē kōmē ‘nor tell (it) to anyone in the village,’ which is omitted by all modern editions of the Greek text; cf. Taylor and Kilpatrick, however, above.

Exegesis:

The words in this verse have already been dealt with: apostellō (1.2) ‘send,’ ‘send away’; eis oikon autou (8.3) ‘to his home,’ ‘home’; kōmē (6.6) ‘village.’

The ‘village’ is Bethsaida (v. 23): the man did not live in the village, however (v. 22).

Translation:

He sent him away must be rendered in some instances as ‘Jesus sent the man away,’ since there is again a shift of subjects from the preceding clause.

Sent him away must not contain the connotation of rejection. An equivalent may be ‘told him, Go to your home and do not go right back into the village.’

Do not even enter the village must not be translated by a verb form which would imply a permanent prohibition of such an action. What Jesus evidently wished to avoid was the man’s immediate return to the waiting crowd.

Negative commands, such as contained in the expression occurring in the Textus Receptus and the Kilpatrick text, may contain several negatives, depending of course upon the grammatical constructions of the receptor language in question. The following rendering in Copainalá Zoque is not unusual, ‘nor do not say nothing to nobody,’ in which the negatives reinforce, rather than cancel out, each other.

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 8:26

8:26a

In Greek, 8:26 begins with the common conjunction that is often translated as “and.” Here it introduces what happened after Jesus healed the man. Connect 8:25 and 8:26 in a natural way in your language.

Jesus sent him home: After Jesus healed the man of his blindness, he told the man to go home. The translation should not sound like Jesus was treating the man in a harsh way.

See the General Comment on 8:26a–b for another translation suggestion.

8:26b

Do not go back into the village:

There is a textual issue here. (1) Some Greek texts have the meaning “Don’t go into the village.” For example, the God’s Word says: “Don’t go into the village” (Berean Standard Bible, Revised Standard Version, New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible, NET Bible, New Century Version, God’s Word, New American Standard Bible, Contemporary English Version, Revised English Bible, Good News Bible, English Standard Version, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English). (2) Other Greek texts have the meaning “nor tell anyone in the village.” For example the King James Version says: “nor tell [it] to any in the town” (King James Version). It is recommended that you follow option (1) as the majority of English versions do.
Jesus did not want the man to tell the people in the village about the miracle. That is the reason he told him to return to his home without entering the village.

General Comment on 8:26a–b

Languages have different ways to use direct and indirect speech. In some languages it may be more natural to use direct speech in both 8:26a and 8:26b. For example, the Contemporary English Version says:

Jesus said to him, “You may return home now, but don’t go into the village.”

In other languages it may be more natural to use indirect speech in both parts of the verse. For example:

Then Jesus sent him home and told him not to go into the village.

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