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 1 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 2 two hands and go into hell, 3 to the unquenchable fire.
1 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.
2 tn Grk “than having.”
3 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.
4 tn Grk “throw it out.”
5 tn Grk “than having.”