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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Mark 1:5 - 1:5
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
5. ἐξεπορεύετο … ἐβαπτίζοντο. Both actions went on continually. The latter verb is passive (Mar 1:9, Mar 8:3), not middle (Act 22:16; 1Co 10:2).
πᾶσα … πάντες. Popular hyperbole, which misleads no one, cf. Mar 1:37. But it is difficult for us to estimate the enthusiasm caused by the hope that, after centuries of silence, Jehovah was again speaking to His people through a Prophet. Most of the people regarded John as a Prophet, most of the hierarchy did not; but the hierarchy did not dare to avow their denial openly (Mar 11:27-33). Mark at the time of John’s preaching was quite old enough to remember the excitement, and he was living in Jerusalem. He may here be giving his own recollections.
ἡ Ἰουδαία χώρα. Elsewhere Mk says simply ἡ Ἰουδαία (Mar 3:7, Mar 10:1, Mar 13:14). Judaea proper is meant, not the whole of Palestine.
Ἰεροσολυμεῖται. Smooth breathing; the aspirate has come from a mistaken connexion with ἱερός. So also in Ἰεροσόλυμα. See on Mar 10:32.
ἐβαπτίζοντο. Were one after another baptized.
ἐξομολογούμενοι. Confessing right out, in full and openly. Not classical, and rare in late Grk, except in LXX. and N.T. See on Joh 1:9. The meaning may be “thereby confessing their sins”; their asking for baptism was ipso facto a confession of sin. More probably it means that they there and then made an acknowledgment in words. Cf. Act 19:18; Jam 5:16. In LXX. it commonly means “giving praise”; cf. Luk 10:21; Rom 14:11; Rom 15:9. The two meanings are connected, Jos 7:19, Δὸς δόξαν τῷ κυρίῳ καὶ δὸς τὴν ἐξομολόγησιν, when Joshua urges Achan to confess his guilt. See also LXX. of Dan 9:20. Here, as in Mar 1:13; Mar 1:39, Mar 2:23, Mar 3:1, we have an important fact expressed by a participle attached to the finite verb.