5:3–5

In 5:3–5, Mark gave background information. He gave more details about the man with the unclean spirit. Use a natural way in your language to indicate that 5:3–5 is background information.

Some of the information (especially 5:4) describes events that happened before the man came to Jesus. If you need to talk about these events in a different order in your language, the General Comment on 5:2–6 at the end of 5:6b gives a suggestion.

5:3a

This man had been living in the tombs: As mentioned in the notes on 5:2c, the tombs here were probably caves. The man probably lived right in these caves.

In some languages it is not natural to say that someone lived in the place where dead people are buried or their bones are kept. If that is true in your language, you may need to say that the man lived at that general place. For example:

among the tombs (English Standard Version)
-or-
at the cemetery
-or-
at a place where dead bodies are put

See also the notes on “from the tombs” and “tombs” in 5:2c and the suggested footnote.

General Comment on 5:2b–3a

In 5:3a the author explained that the man was actually living in the tombs that are mentioned in 5:2c. So in some languages it may be natural to combine 5:2b–c with 5:3a. For example:

2b–3aA man with an evil spirit who lived in the tombs immediately came out and met him.

5:3b

and could no longer be restrained, even with chains: This phrase indicates that no one could keep the man bound or chained. After anyone bound or chained him, he would free himself, as 5:4 describes.

The clause in 5:3b uses several negatives to emphasize that no one could keep the man bound. Use an emphatic expression in your language that emphasizes that it was impossible to successfully bind him. For example:

There was no way that people could restrain him at all any more, not even by chaining him!
-or-
Nobody could keep him tied with chains any more (Good News Bible)

could no longer be restrained: While the Berean Standard Bible translates this clause as passive, it is active in Greek, and in some languages it may be more natural to translate it as active. For example, the New Revised Standard Version says:

no one could restrain him any more

© 2008 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.