Translation commentary on Mark 7:25

Exegesis:

euthus ‘immediately’: if the word is given its literal meaning it should go with elthousa prosepesen ‘immediately … she came and fell.’

hēs eichen to thugatrion autēs literally ‘of whom the daughter of her had,’ i.e. ‘whose daughter had’: here is another example of the redundant personal pronoun autēs ‘of her’ which expresses the same idea as the relative hēs ‘whose’ (for another instance cf. 1.7).

thugatrion (cf. 5.23) ‘little daughter.’

pneuma akatharton (cf. 1.23) ‘unclean spirit.’

prosepesen pros tous podas autou ‘she prostrated herself at his feet.’

prospiptō (cf. 3.11) ‘fall down (at),’ ‘prostrate.’

pros tous podas autou (cf. 5.22) ‘at his feet.’

Translation:

For unclean spirit see 1.26 and for words denoting possession, see 1.23, 26.

Little daughter would imply a child, certainly before puberty, and perhaps around six or seven years of age – at least this may be as intelligent a guess as any other, if in the receptor language one is required to use one of several age-graded words for ‘daughter.’

Fell down at his feet must not be translated literally in some languages. She did not ‘fall’ (in the sense of accidentally tripping over something), but ‘she threw herself down’ or ‘she spread herself at his feet.’

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 .

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