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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mar_4:35-41. See on Mat_8:18; Mat_8:23-27. Comp. Luk_8:22-25.
ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ] Mar_4:1 f.; a difference in respect of time from Mat_8:18. Luk_8:22 is altogether indefinite.
ὡς ἦν ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ ] to be taken together; as He was in the ship (comp. Mar_4:1) without delay for further preparation they take possession of Him. For examples of this mode of expression, see Kypke and Fritzsche.
καὶ ἄλλα δέ ] but other ships also (Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 182; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 884) were in His train ( μετʼ αὐτοῦ ) during the voyage; a characteristic descriptive trait in Mark.
Mar_4:37. On λαῖλαψ ἀνέμου , comp. Hom. Il. xvii. 57; Anthol. Anacr. 82. On the accent of λαῖλαψ , see Lipsius, gramm. Untersuch. p. 36 f.
ἐπέβαλεν ] intransitive (comp. on Mar_4:29, Plat. Phaedr. p. 248 A, and frequently) not transitive, so that the storm would be the subject (Vulgate, Luther, Zeger, Homberg, and several others). The τὰ δέ κύματα , for this purpose prefixed, indicates itself as the subject.
Mar_4:38. And He Himself was at the stem, laid down on the pillow that was there, asleep. It was a part of the vessel intended for the sailors to sit or lie down, Poll. v. 40; more strictly, according to Smith (Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, p. 296 ff.), the cushion of the rowers’ bench.
Mar_4:39. σιώπα , πεφίμωσο ] be silent! be dumb! asyndetic, and so much the more forcible (Nägelsbach, Anm. z. Ilias, ed. 3, p. 247, 359), Eur. Hec. 532. The sea is personified; hence the less are we to conjecture, with Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 230, that Jesus has addressed the disciples (ye shall see that it will immediately be still).
ἐκόπασεν ὁ ἄνεμος ] Herod vii. 191. Comp. Mar_6:51; Mat_14:32, from which passage de Wette arbitrarily derives the expression of Mark.
Mar_4:40. πῶς ] how is it possible, etc.? They had already so often been the witnesses of His divine power,[90] under the protection of which they needed not to tremble.
Mar_4:41. ἐφοβήθησαν ] not the people (Grotius and others), which agrees with Matthew but not with the context, but the disciples, who were thrown (psychologically) into fear at the quite extraordinary phenomenon, and were not yet clear as to the divine causa efficiens in Jesus ( τίς ἄρα οὗτος , etc.). As to φοβεῖσθαι φόβον μέγαν , comp. on Mat_2:10. On τίς ἄρα , in which the perplexity is not expressed by the ἄρα , but is implied in the context (in opposition to Hartung), and ἄρα means: igitur, rebus ita comparatis, see Klotz, ad Devar. p. 176. Comp. Nägelsbach, Anm. z. Ilias, ed. 3, p. 10 f.
[90] With this agrees neither the half-naturalizing view of Lange, L. J. II. p. 314, that the immediate causes of the calm setting in lay in the atmosphere, and that so far the threatening word of Jesus was prophetical (comp. Schleiermacher); nor the complete breaking up of the miracle by Schenkel, who makes the matter amount simply to this, that Jesus by virtue of His confidence in God and foresight of His destination exercised a peaceful and soothing sway among the disciples, although these were possessed of nautical knowledge and He was not. Keim, p. 123, adds, moreover, a prayer previous to the command of Jesus, assuming that then God acted, and Jesus was only His interpreter. Of all this, however, there is nothing in the text. See rather ver. 41, which also testifies against the resolution of the natural miracle suggested by Weizsäcker.
REMARK.
The weakness of faith and of discernment on the part of the disciples (Mar_4:40 f.) appears in Mark most strongly of the Synoptics (comp. Mar_6:52, Mar_7:18, Mar_8:17-18; Mar_8:33, Mar_9:6; Mar_9:19; Mar_9:32; Mar_9:34, Mar_10:24; Mar_10:32; Mar_10:35, Mar_14:40). Ritschl in the theol. Jahrb. 1851, p. 517 ff., has rightly availed himself of this point on behalf of Mark’s originality; since a later softening—yet without set purpose and naturally unbiassed, and hence not even consistent—is at any rate more probable than a subsequent aggravation of this censure. The remarks of Baur in opposition (theol. Jahrb. 1853, p. 88 f.) are unimportant, and would amount to this, that Mark, who is assumed withal to be neutral, would in this point have even outstripped Luke. Comp. Holtzmann, p. 435 f.