Text:

At the end of the verse Textus Receptus adds hugiēs hōs hē allē ‘sound as the other (hand)’ (from the parallel passage Mt. 12.13): all modern editions of the Greek text omit this phrase.

Exegesis:

periblepsamenos (3.34; 5.32; 9.8; 10.23; 11.11) ‘looking around’: the aorist participle indicates manner, and this verb is used in Mark (with the exception of 9.8 and 11.11) of Jesus’ looking upon friends or enemies.

met’ orgēs (only here in Mark) ‘with anger,’ ‘wrathfully.’

sullupoumenos (only here in N.T.) ‘grieved’: in ordinary usage this compound verb means ‘to grieve with (somebody),’ ‘to sympathize,’ and Lagrange and Swete suggest that here it indicates a mixture of grief with anger; most commentators, however, see here only a strengthened form of the simple verb ‘deeply grieved’ , or else the Greek equivalent of the Latin contristare ‘grieve,’ ‘mourn.’

epi tē pōrōsei tēs kardias autōn ‘at the hardness of their heart.’

epi ‘at,’ ‘because’: for this use of epi, see 1.22.

pōrōsis (only here in Mark) ‘hardness’: it is generally agreed that the word in the N.T. (also Rom. 11.25, Eph. 4.18) has the meaning of ‘dullness,’ ‘insensibility,’ ‘insensitiveness,’ ‘obstinacy’ (J. A. Robinson: “obtuseness or intellectual blindness”), Translator’s New Testament Glossary, Manson “stupidity,” Moffatt “obstinacy.”

kardia ‘heart’ (see 2.6 for the meaning of ‘heart’).

ekteinon ‘you stretch out’ (cf. 1.41).

apekatestathē (8.25; 9.12) ‘it was restored,’ i.e. returned to its original soundness.

Translation:

Since the clause grieved at their hardness of heart describes the reason for the anger, it must in some languages precede (Navajo). In all such instances, however, the proper antecedent of ‘their’ must be clearly evident.

Since anger has so many manifestations and seems to affect so many aspects of personality, it is not strange that expressions used to describe this emotional response are so varied: ‘to be warm inside’ (Chicahuaxtla Triqui), ‘to have a cut heart’ (Mende), ‘to have a split heart’ (Miskito), ‘to have a hot heart’ (Tzotzil), ‘a swollen heart’ (Mossi ), ‘fire of the viscera’ (Conob), ‘pain in the heart’ (San Blas Kuna), ‘not with good eye’ (Chimborazo Highland Quichua).

There are, of course, differing degrees of anger which may be indicated in various languages, but there is no reason to think that some relatively weak form of anger should be referred to here, just because Jesus is the subject of the sentence. This was genuine indignation and anger because of the callous disregard of the people for human welfare.

Since ‘anger’ is so often expressed as a process, it must be combined with the main verb of its clause as another related event, e.g. ‘Jesus’ heart was hot as he looked around’ or ‘as he looked around … his heart was swollen.’

In this verse grieve is not to be associated with weeping or mourning for the dead (a common meaning of the term), but with the concept of deep emotional upheaval and disturbance, often described in very figurative language, e.g. ‘his liver was ruined because of…’ (Shilluk).

Hardness of heart is one idiom which in a great many languages must be replaced by quite different types of expressions. For one thing, ‘hard heart’ may have quite different meanings in other languages: ‘brave’ (Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Shilluk), ‘bad character’ (Chicahuaxtla Triqui), ‘endurance’ (Sayula Popoluca), and ‘to be in doubt’ (Piro). In still other languages a phrase such as ‘hard heart’ would not mean any more than a ‘stony lung’ would mean to English-speaking persons. If, then, we are to make sense in such languages, we must adopt an expression which is the natural equivalent in this type of context as e.g. ‘large heart’ (San Mateo del Mar Huave), ‘tightness of heart’ (Shilluk), ‘blind in their thoughts’ (Copainalá Zoque), ‘hard heads’ (Chicahuaxtla Triqui), ‘ears without holes’ (Shipibo-Conibo), ‘do not have pain in their heart’ (Tzotzil, Tzeltal).

Restored may be rendered as ‘was made like it was before’ or ‘became good again.’

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 .