Text:

Instead of placing palin ‘again’ before eis to peran ‘to the other side,’ as do the majority of the modern editions of the Greek text, Lagrange, Taylor, and Kilpatrick place it after eis to peran ‘to the other side’ (so that it thus modifies sunēchthē ‘gathered’); although Tischendorf also places palin after eis to peran, by putting a comma after it he joins it to eis to peran ‘again to the other side.’

Exegesis:

diaperasantos … palin eis to peran ‘going across … again to the other side,’ this time to the west side of the Lake.

diaperaō (6.53) ‘go across,’ ‘go over.’

eis to peran (cf. 4.35) ‘to the other side.’

sunēchthē ochlos polus ep’ auton ‘a great crowd gathered around him.’

sunagō (cf. 2.2) ‘gather together’: cf. 3.20 and 4.1 for other instances.

epi ‘upon’: here, ‘around’ or ‘to.’

kai ēn para tēn thalassan ‘and he was by the sea’ (cf. 2.13; 4.1).

thalassa (cf. 1.16) ‘sea’: the Lake of Galilee.

Translation:

For a discussion of crossed … to the other side see 4.35.

A great crowd may be equivalent to ‘very many people,’ though in general it is not difficult to find words which designate a throng.

In some languages one must specify more exactly what is meant by beside the sea. Was he, for example, ‘on the very shore of the lake,’ within a distance of a hundred yards or so, or with the lake at a distance of a mile or so on the horizon? All of these are different ways of being ‘beside the lake.’ Where a choice is required in designating distance, probably the first alternative is preferable (though the second is not incorrect), for it would indicate the immediacy with which the crowd thronged around him as he returned to his disciples. Cf. Indonesian ‘he was close by the sea,’ Toraja-Sa’dan ‘He was there, where the beach of the sea is.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .