8:34 Then 2 Jesus 3 called the crowd, along with his disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to become my follower, 4 he must deny 5 himself, take up his cross, 6 and follow me.
9:42 “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone 8 tied around his neck and to be thrown into the sea. 9:43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter into life crippled than to have 9 two hands and go into hell, 10 to the unquenchable fire.
1 tn Grk “asked that they might touch.”
2 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.
3 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn Grk “to follow after me.”
5 tn This translation better expresses the force of the Greek third person imperative than the traditional “let him deny,” which could be understood as merely permissive.
6 sn To bear the cross means to accept the rejection of the world for turning to Jesus and following him. Discipleship involves a death that is like a crucifixion; see Gal 6:14.
7 sn How one responds now to Jesus and his teaching is a reflection of how Jesus, as the Son of Man who judges, will respond then in the final judgment.
8 tn Grk “the millstone of a donkey.” This refers to a large flat stone turned by a donkey in the process of grinding grain (BDAG 661 s.v. μύλος 2; L&N 7.68-69). The same term is used in the parallel account in Matt 18:6.
sn The punishment of drowning with a heavy weight attached is extremely gruesome and reflects Jesus’ views concerning those who cause others who believe in him to sin.
9 tn Grk “than having.”
10 sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2, 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36). This Greek term also occurs in vv. 45, 47.
11 tn Grk “throw it out.”
12 tn Grk “than having.”
13 tn Grk “anything.”
14 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”
15 tn Grk “his brother”; but this would be redundant in English with the same phrase “his brother” at the end of the verse, so most modern translations render this phrase “the man” (so NIV, NRSV).
16 tn The use of ἵνα (Jina) with imperatival force is unusual (BDF §470.1).
17 tn Grk “raise up seed” (an idiom for fathering children).
18 sn A quotation from Deut 25:5. This practice is called levirate marriage (see also Ruth 4:1-12; Mishnah, m. Yevamot; Josephus, Ant. 4.8.23 [4.254-256]). The levirate law is described in Deut 25:5-10. The brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow. This served several purposes: It provided for the widow in a society where a widow with no children to care for her would be reduced to begging, and it preserved the name of the deceased, who would be regarded as the legal father of the first son produced from that marriage.
19 sn Sour wine refers to cheap wine that was called in Latin posca, a cheap vinegar wine diluted heavily with water. It was the drink of slaves and soldiers, and was probably there for the soldiers who had performed the crucifixion.
20 tn Grk “a reed.”