For all who hear, I bear witness to the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will inflict upon him the punishments that have been written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share of the tree of life and the holy city, which have been written in this book.
And he who bears witness to these things says: Yes, I come soon. Amen, come, Lord Jesus.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.
Notes
MARK
1.14 "After John was betrayed." John was turned in or handed over \paradidomi) to the authorities, but the word frequently implies treachery, as in Judas's betrayal, 3.19, 14.18, etc.
3.12 "not to divulge what he was doing." Literally, "not to make him known."
3.18 "Cananaean." Or "the zealot," see Matthew 10.4 and Luke 6.15. Cananaean does not refer to a place.
6.3 "made it difficult for him." Eskandalizonto. See the note on Matthew 5.29. Here we are to understand that the disbelief of his own people actually impeded Jesus in the exercise of his powers. In Matthew 13.58 it merely made him unwilling.
6.22 "the daughter of Herodias." Some manuscripts would make this girl "his daughter Herodias."
6.52 "their hearts had become impenetrable." More literally, "their hearts were hardened" |perfect passive participle of poreo); but the sense is not that that they were hardhearted or pitiless, but that meaning and message did not get through to them. Compare Matthew 13.15.
7.3 "elders"; or "ancestors."
8.24 Here, as in 16.4, the word is anablepo. In neither place does the usual sense, "look up," seem to have any point. Here, possibly, the meaning is that the man recovered some sight.
The prefix ana frequently indicates that something is done again.
9.43 "Gehenna." Here I cannot do better than quote Nineham's note in fulclass="underline" "helclass="underline" A word with so many irrelevant associations that it is probably better to keep to the original word, Gehenna. This was a valley west of Jerusalem where at one time children were sacrified to the god Moloch |2 Kings 23.10, Jer. 7.31, 19.5f., 32.35); after being desecrated by Josiah it came to be used as a refuse dump for Jerusalem, a fact which explains the imagery of worm and fire borrowed from Isaiah 66.24 in v. 48. The suggestion is of maggots preying on offal and fires perpetually smoldering for the destruction of refuse. Because of all its bad associations, the Jewish imagination had come to picture Gehenna as the place of future torment for the wicked cf. e.g. 2 Esdras 7.36."
10.30 "now in this time . . . persecutions." I follow Nineham in thinking these words are probably spurious.
14.3 "Simon the leper." In Matthew 26.6, this scene of anointing also takes place in the house of Simon the leper. But it remains inconceivable that in this time and place any leper could have had his ownwn house and entertained guests at dinner. This Simon remains a mystery. Note, however, that in John 12.1-3, the anointing takes place in the house of Lazarus; and though this Lazarus was surely no leper, his name has in later times been constantly associated with leprosy in such terms as "lazaretto" and "lazar-house." This may be through confusion with Laz- ^s the beggar of Luke 16.20-21, who, though not described as a leper, was covered with sores. But there is no explanation of how the confusion could have existed before Mark's composition.
14.34 "keep watch." Or "stay awake." So too in 14.37.
14.46 "bound him." A little free, perhaps, but the normal sense of the word krateo, "seized him," as in 49 below, would be tau- tologous here. "Overpowered" would imply a struggle. What the verb really means is that they prevailed over him, got him into their power or under their control.
14.72 "threw himself downwn." Meaning uncertain, variously translated.
16.4 "looking again." See 8.24 and note.
16.8 In many manuscripts the Gospel of Mark ends here.
16.20 The following two sentences constitute an alternative ending to follow on 16.8.
MATTHEW
"origin" is genesis, that is, "birth," but also "genealogy." "son," that is, "descendant."
"was the father of." Literally (throughout 2-16) "begot."
1.16 "the Christ." Greek christos, "the anointed," "the Messiah."
1.18 "engaged." The engagement is regarded as a marriage except
that it has not been consummated. So Joseph is called her husband, Mary is called his wife, and the word translated "put away" is the same as that used elsewhere for "divorce."
2.1 "Magians." Magoi. In Classical Greek, Magos denotes: 1. a member of one of the tribes of the Medes; 2. a priest or seer, within the Medo-Persian empire, who must belong to this tribe. This may be the sense here, but it is not certain, and I have thought it best to leave the term as a proper name. Though Magos gives us "magic," these Magi were not necessarily magicians, and though they may well have been astrologers, to translate "astrologers" is to say more (despite the star) than the Greek does.
2.13 "Awake." Or, "when you awake." So also in verse 20.
3.1 "preaching." Here and elsewhere the word kerysso has been translated, according to convention, "preach." Literally, it denotes the activity of a herald (keiyx), the announcing or proclamation of a message; in this case, the gospel or the good news. It is thus to be distinguished from "teaching" Ididasko), for which see 4.23 and note.
4.1 "tested." The word peirazo may be translated "test" or "make trial of" | the basic meaning) or "tempt." In this case the testing is done by means of temptation.
4.12 "betrayed." See the note on Mark 1.14.
4.15 "Gentiles." The plural of ethnos, which means a nation or tribe. In the Gospels, this plural usually, but not always, signifies all who are not Jews.
4.23 "teaching." The word is didasko, to be clearly distinguished from kerysso, "preach," see note on 3.1. ' 'Teaching" covers not only such extended discourses as the "Sermon on the Mount" but also the expounding of the scriptures, the parables, and other sayings of Jesus, and answers to questions and challenges.
5.22 "fool." Greek raka; but the exact meaning is not known.
"s^rner." Greek moros, regularly "fool." But this second insult is obviously worse than the other, and I think it may not here mean "fool" but denote immorality or lewdness, a sense found several times in Euripides. "Gehenna." See Mark 9.43 and note.
5.29 "makes yougo amiss." The Greek verb is skandalizo. Thebasic concept is that of a physical block (skandalon) which impedes right progress or understanding and causes diversion into wrong courses, sin, or error, or at least causes difficulty. There is no one English word which will translate skandalon or skandalizo. For other notes on the term, see on Matthew 13.21, 15.12, 16.23, 17.27, 26.31; Mark 6.3.
5.47 "pagans." Ethnikoi, found here and at 6.7 and 18.17, is perhaps to be distinguished from ethne (see note on 4.15) as being more a term of reproach.
6.2 "hypocrites." Hypokrites means "actor." The people in question are here not so much dissemblers as those who put on an act, or make a big production of their good works.