Text:

Instead of elabon ‘they received’ of all modern editions of the Greek text, Textus Receptus has eballon ‘they struck.’

Exegesis:

emptuein (cf. 10.34) ‘to spit upon.’

perikaluptein (only here in Mark) ‘to cover,’ ‘to cover over.’

kolaphizein (only here in Mark) ‘to strike,’ ‘to beat’: this verb is used of beating with the closed fist, or the back of the hand (cf. Lagrange).

prophēteuson (cf. 7.6) ‘prophesy!,’ ‘guest!’ ‘reveal it!’: the meaning, of course (as the parallels Mt. 26.68, Luke 22.64 make explicit), is ‘reveal who it is that struck you!’

hoi hupēretai (cf. v. 54) ‘the servants,’ ‘the guards.’

rapismasin autōn elabon ‘treated him to blows’: this is a Latin colloquialism, verberibus eum acceperunt, describing the way in which the guards dealt with Jesus.

rapisma (only here in Mark) ‘blow’: although it may mean a blow with a club or whip , here it would almost certainly mean a blow with the open hand, a slap.

Translation:

Cover his face could have been either with a cloth or with their hands; the text does not specify.

Prophesy must in this text be understood in a very specific sense, e.g. ‘tell who hit you’ (Tzeltal) or ‘say who did it’ (Amganad Ifugao). The technical meaning of prophesy must generally be avoided in this context or the real meaning of the passage is likely to be lost.

Only rarely can the phrase received him with blows be translated literally. The meaning is ‘beat him up,’ a common enough practice among bullies, whether in or out of military uniform.

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 .