Translation commentary on Mark 5:42

Exegesis:

anestē kai periepatei ‘got up and walked’: perhaps, ‘rose and started walking about.’

anistēmi (cf. 1.35) ‘rise,’ ‘get up.’

peripateō (cf. 2.9) ‘walk,’ ‘walk about.’

exestēsan … ekstasei megalē ‘they were amazed with a great amazement’ (cf. 4.41 ‘they feared a great fear’ for another example of this form of intensive statement).

existēmi (cf. 2.12) ‘to astonish,’ ‘to amaze,’ ‘to confound’: in the active aorist (as here) the verb has a passive sense, ‘to be astonished,’ ‘to be amazed.’

ekstasis (16.8) has the weakened sense of ‘bewilderment,’ ‘astonishment.’

Translation:

The Greek imperfect in the verb translated ‘walked’ has suggested to some translators the value of translating ‘was walking,’ but this may not always be done. For example, in one translation the imperfect tense suggested that she was walking, before she got up. Hence, ‘stood up and started to walk’ is preferable.

Twelve years is translated quite idiomatically in some languages, e.g. ‘her winters are twelve’ (Navajo) or ‘her seasons were ten on the head of two’ (Shilluk).

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 .

SIL Translator's Notes on Mark 5:42

5:42a

the girl got up: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as got up can either mean “to stand up” or “to rise from the dead.” The context shows that both of these things happened: she became alive again, and she stood up. In some languages it may be necessary to make this explicit. For example:

…the little girl became alive again. She stood up…

5:42b

She was twelve years old: This is background information. Many translations use parentheses to indicate this. (Mark may have said this to explain that the girl was old enough to walk. The terms that have been used in the story to refer to her (“my little daughter,” “child,” and “little girl”) could also refer to a baby.) Indicate it in a natural way in your language. For example:

By the way, the child/girl was twelve years old.

In some languages it may be more natural to mention the age of the girl elsewhere in the story, for example, at 5:40d, 5:41a, or 5:42a. The Contemporary English Version says:

41aHe took the twelve-year-old girl by the hand

5:42c

and at once: The words and at once refer to the event of the little girl beginning to live again.

they were utterly astounded: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as they were utterly astounded is literally “they were astonished with great astonishment.” This clause describes an intense feeling of surprise mixed with fear or awe at the miracle that Jesus had just done. Translate it with an expression in your language that could describe how people would feel if they saw someone raised from the dead. You may have an idiom for this.

© 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.