Mark 9:42–47

Footnotes

1. 53 Grk “the millstone of a donkey.” This refers to a large flat stone turned by a donkey in the process of grinding grain ( μύλος 2; L&N 7.68–69). The same term is used in the parallel account in Matt 18:6. The punishment of drowning with a heavy weight attached is extremely gruesome and reflects Jesus’ views concerning those who cause others who believe in him to sin.
2. 54 Grk “than having.”
3. 55 The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5–6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 27:2, 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36). This Greek term also occurs in vv. 45, 47.
4. 56 Most later have 9:44 here and 9:46 after v. 45: “where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched” (identical with v. 48). Verses 44 and 46 are present in A D Θ f13 𝔐 lat syp,h, but lacking in important Alexandrian and several others (א B C L W Δ Ψ 0274 f1 28 565 892 2427 co). This appears to be a scribal addition from v. 48 and is almost certainly not an original part of the Greek text of Mark. The present translation follows in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.
5. 57 Grk “than having.”
6. 58 See note at the end of v. .
7. 59 Grk “throw it out.”
8. 60 Grk “than having.”