Mark 1:41

1:41 Moved with compassion, ¹  Jesus ²  stretched out his hand and touched ³  him, saying, “I am willing. Be clean!”

Mark 3:1

Healing a Withered Hand

3:1 Then ⁴  Jesus ⁵  entered the synagogue ⁶  again, and a man was there who had a withered ⁷  hand.

Mark 3:3

3:3 So he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Stand up among all these people.” ⁸ 

Mark 7:32

7:32 They brought to him a deaf man who had difficulty speaking, and they asked him to place his hands on him.

Mark 3:5

3:5 After looking around ⁹  at them in anger, grieved by the hardness of their hearts, ¹⁰  he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ¹¹ 

[1:41]  ¹ tc The reading found in almost the entire NT ms tradition is σπλαγχνισθείς (splancnisqei", “moved with compassion”). Codex Bezae (D), {1358}, and a few Latin mss (a ff² r^1*) here read ὀργισθείς (ojrgisqei", “moved with anger”). It is more difficult to account for a change from “moved with compassion” to “moved with anger” than it is for a copyist to soften “moved with anger” to “moved with compassion,” making the decision quite difficult. B. M. Metzger (TCGNT 65) suggests that “moved with anger” could have been prompted by 1:43, “Jesus sent the man away with a very strong warning.” It also could have been prompted by the man’s seeming doubt about Jesus’ desire to heal him (v. 40). As well, it is difficult to explain why scribes would be prone to soften the text here but not in Mark 3:5 or 10:14 (where Jesus is also said to be angry or indignant). Thus, in light of diverse mss supporting “moved with compassion,” and at least a plausible explanation for ὀργισθείς as arising from the other reading, it is perhaps best to adopt σπλαγχνισθείς as the original reading. Nevertheless, a decision in this case is not easy. For the best arguments for ὀργισθείς, however, see M. A. Proctor, “The ‘Western’ Text of Mark 1:41: A Case for the Angry Jesus” (Ph.D. diss., Baylor University, 1999).

[1:41]  ² tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:41]  ³ sn Touched. This touch would have rendered Jesus ceremonially unclean (Lev 14:46; also Mishnah, m. Nega’im 3.1; 11.1; 12.1; 13.6-12).

[3:1]  ⁴ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[3:1]  ⁵ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:1]  ⁶ sn See the note on synagogue in 1:21.

[3:1]  ⁷ sn Withered means the man’s hand was shrunken and paralyzed.

[3:3]  ⁷ tn Grk “Stand up in the middle.”

[3:5]  ¹⁰ tn The aorist participle περιβλεψάμενος (peribleyameno") has been translated as antecedent (prior) to the action of the main verb. It could also be translated as contemporaneous (“Looking around…he said”).

[3:5]  ¹¹ tn This term is a collective singular in the Greek text.

[3:5]  ¹² sn The passive was restored points to healing by God. Now the question became: Would God exercise his power through Jesus, if what Jesus was doing were wrong? Note also Jesus’ “labor.” He simply spoke and it was so.