Mark 1:1-8

John the Baptist Begins His Ministry

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.^[a]

2 Just as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "Behold, I am sending my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way,

3 the voice of one shouting in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths!'"^[b]

4 John was there baptizing in the wilderness, proclaiming^[c] a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

5 And all the Judean region and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem went out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

6 And John was dressed in camel's hair and a belt made of leather around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

7 And he was preaching, saying, "One [who is] more powerful than I is coming after me, of whom I am not worthy to bend down [and]^[d] untie the strap of his sandals.

8 I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

Mark 1:1-8 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 add "the Son of God"
• [b]. A quotation from Isa 40:3
• [c]. Some manuscripts have "and proclaiming"
• [d]. *Here "[and]" is supplied because the previous participle ("bend down") has been translated as an infinitive