Mark 9

Syntactic observation

Verse 2 says only μετεμορφώθη, he was transformed; this verse is the one that describes anything visible — and what it describes is neither face nor body but ἱμάτια, the outer garments. And the measure of their whiteness is a γναφεύς: the tradesman who trod, beat and lyed cloth white — a fuller. Divine glory gauged by the laundry trade: no fuller on earth can get it that white. The three words of this verse — γναφεύς, στίλβω to glitter, λευκαίνω to whiten — each occur only here in the four Gospels (Mark and John). The sentence ends in a negative comparison: rather than raising the degree of whiteness, it draws the ceiling of what a man can whiten and says only that this is above it. (Glossing γναφεύς as a fuller is the standard lexical explanation, and the versions compared agree — fuller, launderer, 빨래하는 자.) SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀ἐγένετο ⸀λίαν ⸀οὕτως).

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Syntactic observation

The father's answer is two utterances that pull against each other — Πιστεύω, I believe, and βοήθει μου τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ, help my unbelief. The sentence does not resolve the tension. The preceding verses set it up: at v.22 the father says εἴ τι δύνῃ, if you can do anything, and at v.23 Jesus returns Τὸ Εἰ δύνῃ — the neuter article τό working as quotation marks, picking up the other man's words: that ‘if you can' of yours. The father, who thought the condition lay on Jesus' side, hears that it lies on his own, and in v.24 admits precisely that position. The roots interlock too: ἀπιστία is the noun of the adjective in v.19, where Jesus calls them γενεὰ ἄπιστος, a faithless generation — and five verses later a man takes that name for himself and asks for help. ἀπιστία occurs three times in Mark: 6:6 (at home), 9:24 (here), 16:14 (the disciples who would not believe the resurrection). βοήθει is present imperative — not help once but keep helping. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀εὐθὺς ⸀παιδίου ⸀Πιστεύω·).

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Syntactic observation

In SBLGNT the sentence ends at except by prayer. The Textus Receptus adds καὶ νηστείᾳ, and fasting. Counting changes the weight of that addition: the noun νηστεία, fasting, never occurs in SBLGNT's Mark at all — adopt the variant and the book gains a noun it did not have. The verb νηστεύω comes six times, all packed into 2:18-20, and it is there that Jesus says his people do not fast while the bridegroom is with them. The noun προσευχή, prayer, has just two places in Mark — 9:29 and 11:17, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. The double negative ἐν οὐδενὶ … εἰ μή, by nothing … except, tightens the sentence. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀προσευχῇ.).

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Syntactic observation

The same shape three times — hand (43), foot (45), eye (47) — and at the third the object changes: 43 and 45 enter τὴν ζωήν, life; 47 enters τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ, the kingdom of God. Two words filling one slot. And verses 44 and 46 are absent from SBLGNT — 43 is followed by 45, and 45 by 47. The Textus Receptus, KJV and the Vulgate repeat the sentence of v.48 (ὅπου ὁ σκώληξ αὐτῶν οὐ τελευτᾷ καὶ τὸ πῦρ οὐ σβέννυται) after 43 and after 45, evening the refrain out to three. The critical text keeps it once, at v.48. (The Vulgate runs one verse ahead throughout this chapter — it counts the Greek 9:1 as 8:39, so its chapter 9 ends at 49 — and so the repetitions stand there at 9:43 and 9:45.) That γέεννα is the Hebrew Ge-Hinnom — the valley south of Jerusalem — carried into Greek letters is the standard lexical account; what the morphological data shows is only that the word is a transliterated noun. It occurs three times in Mark, all in this paragraph, and not at all in John. σκανδαλίζω comes from σκάνδαλον, the baited stick of a trap; four of Mark's eight occurrences are packed here (42, 43, 45, 47). ἄσβεστος, unquenchable, stands at three places in the four Gospels — here, Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17, the latter two being the Baptist's same saying about the fire that burns the chaff. Only here, in Mark, is the word attached to the fire of Gehenna. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀σκανδαλίζῃ ⸂ἐστίν σε⸃ ⸂εἰσελθεῖν ζωὴν⸃ ⸀ἄσβεστον.).

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Syntactic observation

Four words — among the shortest and least resolved sentences in Mark: everyone will be salted with fire. The γάρ ties it to what precedes, but the tie will not resolve grammatically — v.48 is unquenchable fire, v.50 is salt, and this verse folds the two into one sentence without saying what is salted, or why. πυρί is dative and reads naturally as instrument, with fire, yet the pairing of that instrument with the act of salting is itself strange. The Textus Receptus adds καὶ πᾶσα θυσία ἁλὶ ἁλισθήσεται, and every sacrifice will be salted with salt — importing the sacrificial rule of Leviticus 2:13 and fixing the riddle into a picture of offering. SBLGNT and Tischendorf print only the short form. ἁλίζω, to salt, stands twice in the four Gospels — here and Matthew 5:13, where it asks with what the salt shall be salted. Here it is people who are salted, and with fire. The noun ἅλας comes twice in the very next verse. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀ἁλισθήσεται.).

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