Mark 1:7-17

7 And he preached, saying, There comes he that is mightier than I after me, the thong of whose sandals I am not fit to stoop down and unloose.

8 *I* indeed have baptised you with water, but *he* shall baptise you with [the] Holy Spirit.

9 And it came to pass in those days [that] Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptised by John at the Jordan.

10 And straightway going up from the water, he saw the heavens parting asunder, and the Spirit, as a dove, descending upon him.

11 And there came a voice out of the heavens: *Thou* art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight.

12 And immediately the Spirit drives him out into the wilderness.

13 And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered ^[a] to him.

14 But after John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the glad tidings of the kingdom of God,

15 and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn nigh; repent and believe in ^[b] the glad tidings.

16 And walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon, and Andrew, [Simon's] brother, casting out a net in the sea, for they were fishers.

17 And Jesus said to them, Come after me, and I will make you become fishers of men;

Mark 1:7-17 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]. As Matt. 4.11, diakoneo.
• [b]. 'Believe in,' &c. A rare form of expression. It refers to believing, in the truth of the substance of a thing: see 2Tim. 1.12.