Mark 5:40

5:40 And they began making fun of him. ¹  But he put them all outside ²  and he took the child’s father and mother and his own companions ³  and went into the room where the child was. ⁴ 

Mark 8:23

8:23 He took the blind man by the hand and brought him outside of the village. Then ⁵  he spit on his eyes, placed his hands on his eyes ⁶  and asked, “Do you see anything?”

Mark 8:1

The Feeding of the Four Thousand

8:1 In those days there was another large crowd with nothing to eat. So ⁷  Jesus ⁸  called his disciples and said to them,

Mark 1:19-22

1:19 Going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother in their ⁹  boat mending nets. 1:20 Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Jesus’ Authority

1:21 Then ¹⁰  they went to Capernaum. ¹¹  When the Sabbath came, ¹²  Jesus ¹³  went into the synagogue ¹⁴  and began to teach. 1:22 The people there ¹⁵  were amazed by his teaching, because he taught them like one who had authority, ¹⁶  not like the experts in the law. ¹⁷ 

Mark 1:2

1:2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, ¹⁸ 

“Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way, ¹⁹ 

Mark 4:4-6

4:4 And as he sowed, some seed ²⁰  fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 4:5 Other seed fell on rocky ground ²¹  where it did not have much soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. ²²  4:6 When the sun came up it was scorched, and because it did not have sufficient root, ²³  it withered.

Mark 4:33-34

The Use of Parables

4:33 So ²⁴  with many parables like these, he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear. 4:34 He did not speak to them without a parable. But privately he explained everything to his own disciples.

John 9:6-7

9:6 Having said this, ²⁵  he spat on the ground and made some mud ²⁶  with the saliva. He ²⁷  smeared the mud on the blind man’s ²⁸  eyes 9:7 and said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” ²⁹  (which is translated “sent”). ³⁰  So the blind man ³¹  went away and washed, and came back seeing.

¹ tn Grk “They were laughing at him.” The imperfect verb has been taken ingressively.

² tn Or “threw them all outside.” The verb used, ἐκβάλλω (ekballw), almost always has the connotation of force in Mark.

³ tn Grk “those with him.”

⁴ tn Grk “into where the child was.”

⁵ tn Grk “village, and.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

⁶ tn Grk “on him,” but the word πάλιν in v. 25 implies that Jesus touched the man’s eyes at this point.

⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

⁸ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁹ tn Or “a boat.” The phrase ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ (en tw ploiw) can either refer to a generic boat, some boat (as it seems to do in Matt 4:21); or it can refer to “their” boat, implying possession. Mark assumes a certain preunderstanding on the part of his readers about the first four disciples and hence the translation “their boat” is justified (cf. also v. 20 in which the “hired men” indicates that Zebedee’s family owned the boats).

¹⁰ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

¹¹ sn Capernaum was a town located on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, 680 ft (204 m) below sea level. It was a major trade and economic center in the North Galilean region, and it became the hub of operations for Jesus’ Galilean ministry.

¹² tn The Greek word εὐθύς (euqus, often translated “immediately” or “right away”) has not been translated here. It sometimes occurs with a weakened, inferential use (BDAG 406 s.v. 2), not contributing significantly to the flow of the narrative. For further discussion, see R. J. Decker, Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark with Reference to Verbal Aspect (SBG 10), 73-77.

¹³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁴ sn The synagogue was a place for Jewish prayer and worship, with recognized leadership (cf. Luke 8:41). Though its origin is not entirely clear, it seems to have arisen in the postexilic community during the intertestamental period. A town could establish a synagogue if there were at least ten men. In normative Judaism of the NT period, the OT scripture was read and discussed in the synagogue by the men who were present. (See the Mishnah, m. Megillah 3-4; m. Berakhot 2.) First came the law, then the prophets, then someone was asked to speak on the texts. Jesus undoubtedly took the opportunity on this occasion to speak about his person and mission, and its relationship to Old Testament fulfillment.

¹⁵ tn Grk “They.”

¹⁶ sn Jesus’ teaching impressed the hearers with the directness of its claim; he taught with authority. A study of Jewish rabbinic interpretation shows that it was typical to cite a list of authorities to make one’s point. Apparently Jesus addressed the issues in terms of his own understanding.

¹⁷ tn Or “the scribes.” The traditional rendering of γραμματεύς (grammateu") as “scribe” does not communicate much to the modern English reader, for whom the term might mean “professional copyist,” if it means anything at all. The people referred to here were recognized experts in the law of Moses and in traditional laws and regulations. Thus “expert in the law” comes closer to the meaning for the modern reader.

¹⁸ tc Instead of “in Isaiah the prophet” the majority of mss read “in the prophets” (A W ˹³ Ï Ir^lat). Except for Irenaeus (2nd century), the earliest evidence for this is thus from the 5th (or possibly late 4th) century (W A). The difficulty of Irenaeus is that he wrote in Greek but has been preserved largely in Latin. His Greek remains have “in Isaiah the prophet.” Only the later Latin translation has “in the prophets.” The KJV reading is thus in harmony with the majority of late mss. On the other hand, the witnesses for “in Isaiah the prophet” (either with the article before Isaiah or not) are early and geographically widespread: א B D L Δ Θ Ë¹ 33 565 700 892 1241 2427 al sy^p co Ir. This evidence runs deep into the 2nd century, is widespread, and is found in the most important Alexandrian, Western, and Caesarean witnesses. The “Isaiah” reading has a better external pedigree in every way. It has the support of the earliest and best witnesses from all the texttypes that matter. Moreover it is the harder reading, since the quotation in the first part of the verse appears to be from Exod 23:20 and Mal 3:1, with the quotation from Isa 40:3 coming in the next verse. The reading of the later mss seems motivated by a desire to resolve this difficulty.

¹⁹ sn The opening lines of the quotation are from Exod 23:20; Mal 3:1. Here is the forerunner who points the way to the arrival of God’s salvation. His job is to prepare and guide the people, as the cloud did for Israel in the desert.

²⁰ tn Mark’s version of the parable, like Luke’s (cf. Luke 8:4-8), uses the collective singular to refer to the seed throughout, so singular pronouns have been used consistently throughout this parable in the English translation. However, the parallel account in Matt 13:1-9 begins with plural pronouns in v. 4 but then switches to the collective singular in v. 5 ff.

²¹ sn The rocky ground in Palestine would be a limestone base lying right under the soil.

²² tn Grk “it did not have enough depth of earth.”

²³ tn Grk “it did not have root.”

²⁴ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of previous action(s) in the narrative.

²⁵ tn Grk “said these things.”

²⁶ tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency). The textual variant preserved in the Syriac text of Ephraem’s commentary on the Diatessaron (“he made eyes from his clay”) probably arose from the interpretation given by Irenaeus in Against Heresies: “that which the Artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the womb, he then supplied in public.” This involves taking the clay as an allusion to Gen 2:7, which is very unlikely.

²⁷ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) was replaced by a third person pronoun and a new sentence started here in the translation.

²⁸ tn Grk “on his.”

²⁹ tn The pool’s name in Hebrew is shiloah from the Hebrew verb “to send.” In Gen 49:10 the somewhat obscure shiloh was interpreted messianically by later Jewish tradition, and some have seen a lexical connection between the two names (although this is somewhat dubious). It is known, however, that it was from the pool of Siloam that the water which was poured out at the altar during the feast of Tabernacles was drawn.

³⁰ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. Why does he comment on the meaning of the name of the pool? Here, the significance is that the Father sent the Son, and the Son sent the man born blind. The name of the pool is applicable to the man, but also to Jesus himself, who was sent from heaven.

³¹ tn Grk “So he”; the referent (the blind man) is specified in the translation for clarity.