Text:
After aggelous ‘angels’ Textus Receptus and Kilpatrick add autou ‘his,’ which is omitted by all other modern editions of the Greek text.
There is considerable doubt concerning the authenticity of autou ‘his’ after eklektous ‘elect’: it is omitted by Tischendorf and Soden; placed in brackets by Westcott and Hort, Nestle, and Taylor; included by Textus Receptus, Vogels, Souter, Lagrange, Kilpatrick, and Merk.
Exegesis:
apostelei (cf. 1.2) ‘he will send’: in the context, the subject is ‘the Son of man’ of the preceding verse.
tous aggelous (cf. 1.2) ‘the angels,’ ‘the heavenly messengers.’
The rest of the verse reflects O.T. concepts and language such as found in Zech. 2.10 and Deut. 30.4.
kai episunaxei (cf. 1.33) ‘and he will gather,’ ‘and he will bring together (into one group).’
tous eklektous (cf. v. 20) ‘the elect,’ ‘the chosen ones.’
ek tōn tessarōn anemōn ‘from the four winds’: this phrase indicates the four points of the compass, meaning (in popular language) ‘from the four corners of the earth’ (cf. in 1 Chr. 9.24, in the Septuagint, the description of the four sides of the Temple, kata tous tessaras anemous ēsan hai pulai ‘the gates were on the four sides’ – literally, ‘according to the four winds’). The phrase appears not only in the Bible but in the papyri as well. Revised Standard Version‘s literal translation ‘from the four winds’ is likely to be misleading, since in current English the idiom does not denote the four points of the compass (cf. The Modern Speech New Testament ‘from north, south, east and west’; Williams ‘from the four points of the compass’).
ap’ akrou gēs heōs akrou ouranou ‘from the extremity of the earth to the extremity of heaven.’ This phrase is unique and offers some difficulty. It appears to be a combination of two phrases often used in the O.T.: ap’ akrou tēs gēs heōs akrou tēs gēs ‘from one extremity of the earth to the other’ (Deut. 13.8, Jer. 12.12), and ap’ akrou tou ouranou heōs akrou tou ouranou ‘from one extremity of heaven to the other’ (Deut. 4.32; 30.4; Ps. 18(19).7; cf. Mt. 24.31). It would mean, therefore, ‘from one end of the world to the other’ (cf. Bengel: “from the uttermost part of the heaven (sky) and earth in the east, even to the uttermost part of the heaven and earth in the west”). Manson confesses ignorance of the precise meaning of the phrase and conjectures it originally meant ‘from one end of the earth to the other.’
The concept of the universe which underlies this idiom, in conformance with Jewish cosmogony, was that of the heaven as a half circle overarching the earth, the two meeting at the two extremes.
Some, however, take the phrase to mean, ‘he will gather the elect … from the highest (or ‘lowest,’ according to others) point of earth and carry them to the heights of heaven’ (to which 1 Thess. 4.17 lends some support).
Translation:
For angels see 1.13.
Gather should be rendered by an expression applicable to persons, not to things, e.g. ‘he will cause to come together’ or ‘he will cause to be led together.’ Literally, the angels are the ones which evidently are to perform this task of bringing the elect together, but the syntactic form of the expression would indicate that the Son of man is the cause, since the third person singular subject of the verb is the same as for the verb send.
His elect are ‘his chosen ones’ or ‘the people he has chosen.’
Four winds provides no end of trouble, especially since only rarely can this idiom be translated literally. In Amganad Ifugao, for example, one speaks only of two winds, and ‘winds’ are never used as reference points for directions. Accordingly, one must say ‘from north, east, south, and west.’ In Cashibo-Cacataibo one may translate ‘from all parts.’ In San Blas Kuna the equivalent is ‘from the four directions,’ and in Piro one may use ‘from the four sides.’
From the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven is admittedly one of the most difficult idioms to translate in the entire gospel of Mark, for frankly, as noted above, we do not know precisely what is meant, since we do not know exactly how this expression is relatable to the cosmogony underlying Scriptural usage. It is impossible to translate end as a ‘point’ or ‘projection.’ In some instances this passage has been rendered as ‘from wherever they are, all over the earth and all over heaven’ and ‘from all over earth to all over heaven.’ However, these translations imply gathering the elect together from heaven, a meaning which is not in the original. A more accurate rendering would be ‘from the limit of the earth in one direction to the limit of the earth in the other direction.’
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 .