Exegesis:

kai idōn … erchetai ‘and seeing … he comes,’ ‘when he saw … he came’: in Greek the complete sentence goes from kai idōn ‘and seeing’ to epi tēs thalassēs ‘on the sea,’ the main verb being erchetai ‘he comes.’ The text appears to say that ‘he saw them’ from the hill where he was praying, and so he came, about the fourth watch of the night (cf. Lagrange).

basanizomenous en tō elaunein ‘distressed in (their) rowing,’ ‘troubled as they rowed.’

basanizomai (cf. 5.7) here in the sense of ‘be troubled,’ ‘be distressed’; perhaps the whole phrase means ‘they were straining at the oars’ (Goodspeed; cf. Translator’s New Testament; cf. Manson ‘laboring at the oars’; Berkeley ‘toiling hard at rowing’).

en tō elaunein (cf. 4.4 en tō speirein ‘as he sowed’) ‘in the rowing,’ ‘as they rowed’: the verb occurs only here in Mark.

ho anemos (cf. 4.37) ‘the wind.’

enantios (15.39) ‘against,’ ‘contrary,’ ‘opposed.’

peri tetartēn phulakēn tēs nuktos ‘about the fourth watch of the night’: according to the Greco-Roman system the night (6:00 P.M. to 6:00 A.M.) was divided into four watches of three hours each. The fourth watch, the last one, would be from 3:00 to 6:00 A.M.

phulakē (in 6.17 ‘prison’) ‘watch.’

peripatōn epi tēs thalassēs ‘walking on the sea,’ ‘walking on (top of) the water.’

peripateō (cf. 2.9) ‘walk.’

kai ēthelen parelthein autous ‘and he was going to pass them by’: it is generally agreed that the verb thelō here does not mean ‘will’ or ‘wish,’ but is used in a weakened sense, being the equivalent of an auxiliary. American Standard Version ‘as if intending to pass them by’ reads into the text more than is there.

parerchomai (13.30, 31; 14.35) ‘pass by,’ ‘pass’: this is the meaning most commentators and translators give the verb in this passage; without a direct object it may mean ‘come to,’ ‘join’ (Lk. 12.37, 17.7) and this is the meaning Goodspeed gives it here, ‘and (he) was going to join them,’ an interpretation which seems quite reasonable in view of the context.

Translation:

Rowing is not too widely practiced in the world, and even where it is known, there are two principal practices: (1) pulling the oars, and hence going in the direction to which one’s back is turned, and (2) pushing the oars, as in the Orient, and thus facing the direction in which the boat is moving. Where rowing is completely unknown, translators have tried to describe the action as ‘making the boat move’ (Eastern Highland Otomi) and ‘pushing the water back with wooden poles’ (Chicahuaxtla Triqui).

Wind was against them may be translated as ‘the wind was blowing against them’ or ‘the wind was blowing on their back’ (i.e. if our Western kind of rowing is understood) or ‘the wind was blowing into their faces’ (if the Oriental type is generally inferred by the people). One may avoid this problem somewhat by saying ‘blowing from the direction in which they were going.’

The fourth watch is variously rendered: ‘when it was almost dawn’ (Southern Subanen), ‘when the cocks had crowed’ (Maninka), ‘towards dawn’ (Toraja-Sa’dan), ‘at the very first cock-crow’ (Batak Toba), ‘when it was already three o’clock at night’ (Indonesian).

Walking on the sea is ‘walking on top of the lake’ (or ‘face of the lake’ in some instances).

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 .