Markus 1:10

1:10 And just as Jesus ¹  was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens ²  splitting apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ³ 

Markus 13:25

13:25 the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. ⁴ 

Markus 13:27

13:27 Then he will send angels and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. ⁵ 

Markus 1:11

1:11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my one dear Son; ⁶  in you I take great delight.” ⁷ 

Markus 8:11

The Demand for a Sign

8:11 Then the Pharisees ⁸  came and began to argue with Jesus, asking for ⁹  a sign from heaven ¹⁰  to test him.

Markus 14:62

14:62 “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand ¹¹  of the Power ¹²  and coming with the clouds of heaven.” ¹³ 

Markus 13:31

13:31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. ¹⁴ 

Markus 4:4

4:4 And as he sowed, some seed ¹⁵  fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.

Markus 4:32

4:32 when it is sown, it grows up, ¹⁶  becomes the greatest of all garden plants, and grows large branches so that the wild birds ¹⁷  can nest in its shade.” ¹⁸ 

Markus 13:26

13:26 Then everyone ¹⁹  will see the Son of Man arriving in the clouds ²⁰  with great power and glory.

Markus 7:34

7:34 Then ²¹  he looked up to heaven and said with a sigh, “Ephphatha” (that is, “Be opened”). ²² 

Markus 6:41

6:41 He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. He ²³  gave them to his ²⁴  disciples to serve the people, and he divided the two fish among them all.

[1:10]  ¹ tn Grk “and immediately coming up out of the water, he saw.” The present participle has been translated temporally, with the subject (Jesus) specified for clarity.

[1:10]  ² tn Or “sky.” The Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The same word is used in v. 11.

[1:10]  ³ sn The phrase like a dove is a descriptive comparison. The Spirit is not a dove, but descended like one in some sort of bodily representation.

[13:25]  ⁴ sn An allusion to Isa 13:10, 34:4 (LXX); Joel 2:10. The heavens were seen as the abode of heavenly forces, so their shaking indicates distress in the spiritual realm. Although some take the powers as a reference to bodies in the heavens (like stars and planets, “the heavenly bodies,” NIV) this is not as likely.

[13:27]  ⁵ tn Or “of the sky”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context.

[1:11]  ⁶ tn Grk “my beloved Son,” or “my Son, the beloved [one].” The force of ἀγαπητός (agaphtos) is often “pertaining to one who is the only one of his or her class, but at the same time is particularly loved and cherished” (L&N 58.53; cf. also BDAG 7 s.v. 1).

[1:11]  ⁷ tn Or “with you I am well pleased.”

[1:11]  sn The allusions in the remarks of the text recall Ps 2:7a; Isa 42:1 and either Isa 41:8 or, less likely, Gen 22:12,16. God is marking out Jesus as his chosen one (the meaning of “[in you I take] great delight”), but it may well be that this was a private experience that only Jesus and John saw and heard (cf. John 1:32-33).

[8:11]  ⁸ sn See the note on Pharisees in 2:16.

[8:11]  ⁹ tn Grk “seeking from him.” The participle ζητοῦντες (zhtountes) shows the means by which the Pharisees argued with Jesus.

[8:11]  ¹⁰ sn What exactly this sign would have been, given what Jesus was already doing, is not clear. But here is where the fence-sitters reside, refusing to commit to him.

[14:62]  ¹¹ sn An allusion to Ps 110:1. This is a claim that Jesus shares authority with God in heaven. Those present may have thought they were his judges, but, in fact, the reverse was true.

[14:62]  ¹² sn The expression the right hand of the Power is a circumlocution for referring to God. Such indirect references to God were common in 1st century Judaism out of reverence for the divine name.

[14:62]  ¹³ sn An allusion to Dan 7:13.

[13:31]  ¹⁴ sn The words that Jesus predicts here will never pass away. They are more stable and lasting than creation itself! For this kind of image, see Isa 40:8; 55:10-11.

[4:4]  ¹⁵ tn Mark’s version of the parable, like Luke’s (cf. Luke 8:4-8), uses the collective singular to refer to the seed throughout, so singular pronouns have been used consistently throughout this parable in the English translation. However, the parallel account in Matt 13:1-9 begins with plural pronouns in v. 4 but then switches to the collective singular in v. 5 ff.

[4:32]  ¹⁶ tn Mark 4:31-32 is fairly awkward in Greek. Literally the sentence reads as follows: “As a mustard seed, which when sown in the earth, being the smallest of all the seeds in the earth, and when it is sown, it grows up…” The structure has been rendered in more idiomatic English, although some of the awkward structure has been retained for rhetorical effect.

[4:32]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “the birds of the sky” or “the birds of the heaven”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated either “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The idiomatic expression “birds of the sky” refers to wild birds as opposed to domesticated fowl (cf. BDAG 809 s.v. πετεινόν).

[4:32]  ¹⁸ sn The point of the parable seems to be that while the kingdom of God may appear to have insignificant and unnoticeable beginnings (i.e., in the ministry of Jesus), it will someday (i.e., at the second advent) be great and quite expansive. The kingdom, however, is not to be equated with the church, but rather the church is an expression of the kingdom. Also, there is important OT background in the image of the mustard seed that grew and became a tree: Ezek 17:22-24 pictures the reemergence of the Davidic house where people can find calm and shelter. Like the mustard seed, it would start out small but grow to significant size.

[13:26]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “they.”

[13:26]  ²⁰ sn An allusion to Dan 7:13. Here is Jesus returning with full judging authority.

[7:34]  ²¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[7:34]  ²² sn The author’s parenthetical note gives the meaning of the Aramaic word Ephphatha.

[6:41]  ²³ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[6:41]  ²⁴ tc ‡ Most mss (Ì⁴⁵ A D W Θ Ë^1,13 Ï lat sy) have αὐτοῦ (autou, “his”) after τοῖς μαθηταῖς (toi" maqhtai", “the disciples”), but several excellent witnesses (א B L Δ 33 579 892 1241 1424 2427 pc) lack the pronoun. This kind of variant is often a predictable expansion of the text; further, that many important mss lack the pronoun gives support for the shorter reading. For these reasons, the pronoun is considered to be secondary. NA²⁷ puts αὐτοῦ in brackets, indicating some doubts as to its authenticity.

[6:41]  tn Grk “the disciples”; the Greek article has been translated here as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).