4for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces, and no one had the strength to subdue him.
“In Thai society, those who are possessed by evil spirits are usually the weak or mentally unstable. This man is shown as freed from his spiritual and physical chains. Even though he is naked Jesus is not ashamed to be close to him.”
Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 5:4:
Uma: “In that land of Gerasa, there was a person who was possessed by an evil-spirit. His dwelling was in the graves. He couldn’t be kept bound even with chains, for no kidding was he strong. Sometimes his feet and hands were bound, but he could always break the ropes and chains. Because he was so strong, no-one dared to guard him. Day and night he kept wandering among the graves and in the mountains, and he called out and wounded himself with rocks. So, just as Yesus got-off/descended from the boat, this possessed person appeared from the graves.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Often his hands and feet had been bound, but he just tore/broke the chain. No person was strong enough to hold him.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Because for a long time already they were always tying his hands and feet, but each time they bound him, he just broke the fetters and the chains. No one could control him because he was very strong.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Because many times they had chained his hands/arms and feet/legs, but he just-repeatedly-snapped the chains on his hands/arms and destroyed those that were on his feet/legs. Nor could anyone restrain him, because his strength was too-much.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Many times already he had been fettered and as-was-said bound with chains, but he kept snapping the chains and breaking what was used to fetter him. There was really no-one who could detain him.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
dia to auton … dedesthai kai diespasthai … kai … suntetriphthai ‘because he … had been bound, and (the chains) had been shattered … and (the fetters) … had been smashed’: the three verbal infinitives, all perfect passives, are governed by the preposition dia ‘on account of,’ ‘because.’ As Burton points out, this clause presents the evidence for the preceding statement (that the man no longer could be bound) rather than the cause.
diaspaō (only here in Mark) ‘tear apart,’ ‘shatter.’
suntribō (14.3) ‘crush,’ ‘smash,’ ‘break.’
It is to be noticed that the perfect infinitive dedesthai describes an action in the past whose result no longer existed at the time of speaking, but had ceased at an undefined point in the past: ‘he had been bound.’
pedais (only here in Mark) ‘with fetters,’ ‘with shackles.’
kai oudeis ischuen auton damasai ‘and no one was strong enough to subdue him’: a summary statement of the whole detailed description of the demoniac’s superhuman strength.
ischuō (cf. 2.17) ‘to be strong,’ ‘to be able’; Field (against Revised Standard Version) contends for the weakened sense ‘was able,’ ‘could.’ The use of edunato ‘could’ in the previous verse, however, would seem to require for ischuen the meaning Revised Standard Version gives it.
damazō (only here in Mark) ‘subdue’; of animals, ‘tame.’
Translation:
Lived among the tombs is equivalent to ‘had his home among the tombs’ or ‘continually stayed among the tombs.’
It should be noted that in the Revised Standard Version text verses 2-4 are punctuated as one sentence. Because of the complex nature of the clauses, involving as they do several shifts in subject expressions, it is necessary in many languages to break these up into several complete sentences, depending upon the syntactic requirements of the receptor language into which one is translating.
Chains are known as ‘iron ropes’ in some areas (Central Tarahumara, South Bolivian Quechua), and in the second part of verse 3 may be incorporated as follows: ‘no one could tie him up any more, not even when they used iron ropes.’ In some instances no one could is more naturally rendered as ‘people could not.’
Fetters were used to bind the legs and feet and the chains were used to bind the hands and arms. Where a specific word for fetters is not known, it is possible to translate this passage as ‘put chains on his hands and feet’ (Tetelcingo Nahuatl, Central Tarahumara); Toraja-Sa’dan has ‘block in which the feet are put.’
The chains he wrenched apart refers to the violent action of his arms in breaking the chains and the fetters he broke may refer to his smashing of the fetters by stones or slamming them against rocks or on the ground, translated in some instances as ‘he pulled in two the chains around his arms and he smashed into pieces the iron that was fastened on his legs’
Had the strength to is in some languages equivalent to ‘was strong enough to’ or ‘was able to.’
Subdue may be translated either as a reference to taming wild animals, e.g. ‘to teach him to drink’ (Shilluk), or to controlling possessed persons, e.g. ‘to keep him quiet’ (Tzotzil).
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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