Markus 4:7

4:7 Other seed fell among the thorns, ¹  and they grew up and choked it, ²  and it did not produce grain.

Markus 5:20

5:20 So ³  he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis ⁴  what Jesus had done for him, ⁵  and all were amazed.

Markus 8:11

The Demand for a Sign

8:11 Then the Pharisees ⁶  came and began to argue with Jesus, asking for ⁷  a sign from heaven ⁸  to test him.

Markus 12:15

12:15 But he saw through their hypocrisy and said ⁹  to them, “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius ¹⁰  and let me look at it.”

Markus 12:19

12:19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man ¹¹  must marry ¹²  the widow and father children ¹³  for his brother.’ ¹⁴ 

Markus 14:13

14:13 He sent two of his disciples and told them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar ¹⁵  of water will meet you. Follow him.

Markus 15:7

15:7 A man named Barabbas was imprisoned with rebels who had committed murder during an insurrection.

Markus 16:10

16:10 She went out and told those who were with him, while they were mourning and weeping.

[4:7]  ¹ sn Palestinian weeds like these thorns could grow up to six feet in height and have a major root system.

[4:7]  ² sn That is, crowded out the good plants.

[5:20]  ³ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “So” to indicate the conclusion of the episode in the narrative.

[5:20]  ⁴ sn The Decapolis refers to a league of towns (originally consisting of ten; the Greek name literally means “ten towns”) whose region (except for Scythopolis) lay across the Jordan River.

[5:20]  ⁵ sn Note that the man could not separate what God had done from the one through whom God had done it (what Jesus had done for him). This man was called to witness to God’s goodness at home.

[8:11]  ⁶ sn See the note on Pharisees in 2:16.

[8:11]  ⁷ tn Grk “seeking from him.” The participle ζητοῦντες (zhtountes) shows the means by which the Pharisees argued with Jesus.

[8:11]  ⁸ 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.

[12:15]  ⁹ tn Grk “Aware of their hypocrisy he said.”

[12:15]  ¹⁰ tn Here the specific name of the coin was retained in the translation, because not all coins in circulation in Palestine at the time carried the image of Caesar. In other places δηνάριον (dhnarion) has been translated simply as “silver coin” with an explanatory note.

[12:15]  sn A denarius was a silver coin stamped with the image of the emperor and worth approximately one day’s wage for a laborer.

[12:19]  ¹¹ tn Grk “his brother”; but this would be redundant in English with the same phrase “his brother” at the end of the verse, so most modern translations render this phrase “the man” (so NIV, NRSV).

[12:19]  ¹² tn The use of ἵνα (Jina) with imperatival force is unusual (BDF §470.1).

[12:19]  ¹³ tn Grk “raise up seed” (an idiom for fathering children).

[12:19]  ¹⁴ sn A quotation from Deut 25:5. This practice is called levirate marriage (see also Ruth 4:1-12; Mishnah, m. Yevamot; Josephus, Ant. 4.8.23 [4.254-256]). The levirate law is described in Deut 25:5-10. The brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow. This served several purposes: It provided for the widow in a society where a widow with no children to care for her would be reduced to begging, and it preserved the name of the deceased, who would be regarded as the legal father of the first son produced from that marriage.

[14:13]  ¹⁵ sn Since women usually carried these jars, it would have been no problem for the two disciples (Luke 22:8 states that they were Peter and John) to recognize the man Jesus was referring to.