Mark 1:16-26

16 And, walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon, and Andrew his brother, casting a drag into the sea, for they were fishers,

17 and Jesus said to them, `Come ye after me, and I shall make you to become fishers of men;'

18 and immediately, having left their nets, they followed him.

19 And having gone on thence a little, he saw James of Zebedee, and John his brother, and they were in the boat refitting the nets,

20 and immediately he called them, and, having left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, they went away after him.

21 And they go on to Capernaum, and immediately, on the sabbaths, having gone into the synagogue, he was teaching,

22 and they were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as having authority, and not as the scribes.

23 And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out,

24 saying, `Away! what -- to us and to thee, Jesus the Nazarene? thou didst come to destroy us; I have known thee who thou art -- the Holy One of God.'

25 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, `Be silenced, and come forth out of him,'

26 and the unclean spirit having torn him, and having cried with a great voice, came forth out of him,

Mark 1:16-26 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.