Mark 5:23

5:23 He asked him urgently, “My little daughter is near death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be healed and live.”

Mark 7:26

7:26 The woman was a Greek, of Syrophoenician origin. She ¹  asked him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

Mark 10:13

Jesus and Little Children

10:13 Now ²  people were bringing little children to him for him to touch, ³  but the disciples scolded those who brought them. ⁴ 

Matthew 17:15

17:15 and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, because he has seizures ⁵  and suffers terribly, for he often falls into the fire and into the water.

Luke 9:38

9:38 Then ⁶  a man from the crowd cried out, ⁷  “Teacher, I beg you to look at ⁸  my son – he is my only child!

John 4:47

4:47 When he heard that Jesus had come back from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him ⁹  to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.

¹ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.

³ tn Grk “so that he would touch them.” Here the touch is connected with (or conveys) a blessing (cf. v. 16; also BDAG 126 s.v. ἅπτω 2.c).

⁴ tc “Those who brought them” (ἐπετιμῶν τοῖς προσφέρουσιν, epetimwn toi" prosferousin) is the reading of most mss (A D W [Θ Ë^1,13] Ï lat sy), but it is probably a motivated reading. Since the subject is not explicit in the earliest and best witnesses as well as several others (א B C L Δ Ψ 579 892 2427), scribes would be prone to add “those who brought them” here to clarify that the children were not the ones being scolded. It could be argued that the masculine pronoun αὐτοῖς (autois, “them”) only rarely was used with the neuter antecedent παιδία (paidia, “children”), and thus the longer reading was not motivated by scribal clarification. However, such rare usage is found in Mark (cf. 5:41; 9:24-26); further, scribes routinely added clarifications when such were not necessary. Thus, both on external and internal grounds, the shorter reading is strongly preferred. Similar motivations are behind the translation here, namely, “those who brought them” has been supplied to ensure that the parents who brought the children are in view, not the children themselves.

⁵ tn Grk “he is moonstruck,” possibly meaning “lunatic” (so NAB, NASB), although now the term is generally regarded as referring to some sort of seizure disorder such as epilepsy (L&N 23.169; BDAG 919 s.v. σεληνιάζομαι).

⁶ tn Grk “And behold.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the somewhat unexpected appearance of the man. The Greek word ἰδού (idou) at the beginning of this statement has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

⁷ tn Grk “cried out, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

⁸ tn This verb means “to have regard for”; see Luke 1:48.

⁹ tn The direct object of ἠρώτα (hrwta) is supplied from context. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.