Mark 2:3

2:3 Some people 1  came bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 2 

Mark 6:32

6:32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to some remote place.

Mark 11:5

11:5 Some people standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying that colt?”

Mark 12:13

Paying Taxes to Caesar

12:13 Then 3  they sent some of the Pharisees 4  and Herodians 5  to trap him with his own words. 6 

Mark 14:4

14:4 But some who were present indignantly said to one another, “Why this waste of expensive 7  ointment?

Mark 15:35

15:35 When some of the bystanders heard it they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah!” 8 

1 tn Grk “they”; the referent (some unnamed people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

2 tn The redundancy in this verse is characteristic of the author’s rougher style.

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

4 sn See the note on Pharisees in 2:16.

5 sn Pharisees and Herodians made a very interesting alliance. W. W. Wessel (“Mark,” EBC 8:733) comments: “The Herodians were as obnoxious to the Pharisees on political grounds as the Sadducees were on theological grounds. Yet the two groups united in their opposition to Jesus. Collaboration in wickedness, as well as goodness, has great power. Their purpose was to trip Jesus up in his words so that he would lose the support of the people, leaving the way open for them to destroy him.” See also the note on “Herodians” in Mark 3:6.

6 tn Grk “trap him in word.”

7 tn The word “expensive” is not in the Greek text but has been included to suggest a connection to the lengthy phrase “costly aromatic oil from pure nard” occurring earlier in v. 3. The author of Mark shortened this long phrase to just one word in Greek when repeated here, and the phrase “expensive ointment” used in the translation is intended as an abbreviated paraphrase.

8 sn Perhaps the crowd thought Jesus was calling for Elijah because the exclamation “my God, my God” (i.e., in Aramaic, Eloi, Eloi) sounds like the name Elijah.