Text:

Instead of ēporei ‘he was puzzled’ of all modern editions of the Greek text, Textus Receptus has epoiei ‘he was doing.’

Exegesis:

ephobeito (cf. 4.40) ‘he held (John) in awe,’ ‘he feared,’ ‘he respected.’

eidōs auton andra dikaion kai hagion ‘knowing him (to be) a righteous and holy man’: the participle eidōs ‘knowing’ is causal: ‘because he knew.’

dikaios (cf. 2.17) ‘righteous,’ ‘just,’ ‘upright.’

hagios (only place in Mark used of a man) ‘holy.’

sunetērei (only here in Mark) ‘he kept safe,’ ‘he protected’: i.e. from Herodias.

kai akousas autou polla ēporei ‘and when he heard him he was much perplexed’: the majority of translations take polla ‘much,’ ‘often’ with the principal verb ēporei ‘he was puzzled’: Translator’s New Testament, however, takes it with the participle akousas ‘he often heard him.’

aporeō (only here in Mark) ‘be undecided,’ ‘be puzzled’ (from a privative ‘not’ and poros ‘passage’: literally, ‘without a way’). The verb may mean ‘raise questions’ (cf. Liddell & Scott I.2), which is suggested for this passage by Field.

kai hēdeōs autou ēkouen ‘yet he heard him gladly,’ ‘yet he liked to hear him.’

hēdeōs (only here in Mark) ‘gladly,’ ‘with pleasure.’

Translation:

Feared in this context means ‘had a great deal of respect for,’ ‘had honor for him,’ or ‘saw him big’ (as in some languages).

For righteous see 2.17. In this context some languages have rather interesting expressions: ‘did what he should’ (Eastern Highland Otomi), ‘walked straight’ (Sayula Popoluca), ‘was a man with a good heart’ (Huichol), ‘his life was straight’ (Southern Bobo Madaré), and ‘was completely good’ (San Mateo del Mar Huave). (This last expression does not imply sinless perfection.)

Holy has been discussed (see 1.7) in connection with the word Spirit. When applied to persons there may need to be certain adaptations, e.g. ‘good’ (Southern Bobo Madaré), ‘without sin’ (Huichol), and ‘uncontaminated’ (Vai).

Kept him safe may be translated as ‘kept him from being harmed.’

Perplexed is equivalent to ‘worried,’ e.g. ‘his heart was gone’ (Tzeltal), ‘hard chased’ (Piro), ‘his mind was killing him’ (Navajo), ‘his stomach rose up’ (Farefare), ‘he was very irresolute’ (lit., ‘it was all wrong with him’) (Indonesian), and ‘his heart was very divided’ (Javanese).

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 .