Mark 1:38

1:38 He replied, ¹  “Let us go elsewhere, into the surrounding villages, so that I can preach there too. For that is what I came out here to do.” ² 

Mark 1:40

Cleansing a Leper

1:40 Now ³  a leper ⁴  came to him and fell to his knees, asking for help. “If ⁵  you are willing, you can make me clean,” he said.

Mark 4:32

4:32 when it is sown, it grows up, ⁶  becomes the greatest of all garden plants, and grows large branches so that the wild birds ⁷  can nest in its shade.” ⁸ 

Mark 6:36

6:36 Send them away so that they can go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.”

Mark 7:15

7:15 There is nothing outside of a person that can defile him by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles him.”

Mark 8:18

8:18 Though you have eyes, don’t you see? And though you have ears, can’t you hear? ⁹  Don’t you remember?

Mark 9:50

9:50 Salt ¹⁰  is good, but if it loses its saltiness, ¹¹  how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

Mark 12:37

12:37 If David himself calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” ¹²  And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.

Mark 14:7

14:7 For you will always have the poor with you, and you can do good for them whenever you want. But you will not always have me! ¹³ 

Mark 15:29

15:29 Those who passed by defamed him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who can destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days,

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¹ tn Grk “And he said to them.”

² tn Grk “Because for this purpose I have come forth.”

³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.

⁴ sn The ancient term for leprosy covers a wider array of conditions than what we call leprosy today. A leper was totally ostracized from society until he was declared cured (Lev 13:45-46).

⁵ tn This is a third class condition. The report portrays the leper making no presumptions about whether Jesus will heal him or not.

⁶ tn Mark 4:31-32 is fairly awkward in Greek. Literally the sentence reads as follows: “As a mustard seed, which when sown in the earth, being the smallest of all the seeds in the earth, and when it is sown, it grows up…” The structure has been rendered in more idiomatic English, although some of the awkward structure has been retained for rhetorical effect.

⁷ tn Grk “the birds of the sky” or “the birds of the heaven”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated either “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The idiomatic expression “birds of the sky” refers to wild birds as opposed to domesticated fowl (cf. BDAG 809 s.v. πετεινόν).

⁸ sn The point of the parable seems to be that while the kingdom of God may appear to have insignificant and unnoticeable beginnings (i.e., in the ministry of Jesus), it will someday (i.e., at the second advent) be great and quite expansive. The kingdom, however, is not to be equated with the church, but rather the church is an expression of the kingdom. Also, there is important OT background in the image of the mustard seed that grew and became a tree: Ezek 17:22-24 pictures the reemergence of the Davidic house where people can find calm and shelter. Like the mustard seed, it would start out small but grow to significant size.

⁹ tn Grk “do you not hear?”

¹⁰ sn Salt was used as seasoning or fertilizer (BDAG 41 s.v. ἅλας a), or as a preservative. If salt ceased to be useful, it was thrown away. With this illustration Jesus warned about a disciple who ceased to follow him.

¹¹ sn The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its saltiness since its chemical properties cannot change. It is thus often assumed that Jesus was referring to chemically impure salt, perhaps a natural salt which, when exposed to the elements, had all the genuine salt leached out, leaving only the sediment or impurities behind. Others have suggested the background of the saying is the use of salt blocks by Arab bakers to line the floor of their ovens: Under the intense heat these blocks would eventually crystallize and undergo a change in chemical composition, finally being thrown out as unserviceable. A saying in the Talmud (b. Bekhorot 8b) attributed to R. Joshua ben Chananja (ca. a.d. 90), when asked the question “When salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” is said to have replied, “By salting it with the afterbirth of a mule.” He was then asked, “Then does the mule (being sterile) bear young?” to which he replied: “Can salt lose its flavor?” The point appears to be both are impossible. The saying, while admittedly late, suggests that culturally the loss of flavor by salt was regarded as an impossibility. Genuine salt can never lose its flavor. In this case the saying by Jesus here may be similar to Matt 19:24, where it is likewise impossible for the camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle.

¹² tn Grk “David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ So how is he his son?” The conditional nuance, implicit in Greek, has been made explicit in the translation (cf. Matt 22:45).

¹³ tn In the Greek text of this clause, “me” is in emphatic position (the first word in the clause). To convey some impression of the emphasis, an exclamation point is used in the translation.