Mark 1:14-20

Public Ministry in Galilee

14 And after^[a] John {had been taken into custody},^[b] Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God

15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the gospel!"

Jesus Calls His First Disciples

16 And [as he]^[c] was passing by along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, Simon's brother, casting [a net]^[d] into the sea (for they were fishermen).

17 And Jesus said to them, "{Follow}^[e] me and I will make you become fishers of people."

18 And immediately they left their nets [and]^[f] followed him.

19 And going on a little [farther], he saw James the [son] of Zebedee and his brother John, and they [were] in the boat mending the nets.

20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men [and]^[g] went away after him.

Mark 1:14-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO MARK

This is the title of the book, the subject of which is the Gospel; a joyful account of the ministry, miracles, actions, and sufferings of Christ: the writer of it was not one of the twelve apostles, but an evangelist; the same with John Mark, or John, whose surname was Mark: John was his Hebrew name, and Mark his Gentile name, Ac 12:12,25, and was Barnabas's sister's son, Col 4:10, his mother's name was Mary, Ac 12:12. The Apostle Peter calls him his son, 1Pe 5:13, if he is the same; and he is thought to have wrote his Gospel from him {a}, and by his order, and which was afterwards examined and approved by him {b} it is said to have been wrote originally in Latin, or in the Roman tongue: so say the Arabic and Persic versions at the beginning of it, and the Syriac version says the same at the end: but of this there is no evidence, any more, nor so much, as of Matthew's writing his Gospel in Hebrew. The old Latin copy of this, is a version from the Greek; it is most likely that it was originally written in Greek, as the rest of the New Testament.

{a} Papias apud Euseb. Hist. l. 3. c. 39. Tertull. adv. Marcion. l. 4. c. 5. {b} Hieron. Catalog. Script. Eccles. p. 91. sect. 18.

Footnotes

• [a]. Some manuscripts have "Now after"
• [b]. Literally "had been handed over"
• [c]. *Here "[as]" is supplied as a component of the participle ("was passing by") which is understood as temporal
• [d]. *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
• [e]. Literally "come after"
• [f]. *Here "[and]" is supplied because the previous participle ("left") has been translated as a finite verb
• [g]. *Here "[and]" is supplied because the previous participle ("left") has been translated as a finite verb