Mark 9 is the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It begins with Jesus' prediction of the kingdom of God before recounting the transfiguration of Jesus, a healing miracle, and Jesus' teaching about the return of Elijah, humility and temptation. Jesus then predicts that the Son of Man will be betrayed, killed, and rise again.
Text The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 50 verses (49 verses in the Vulgate and its Douai-Rheims translation).
Textual witnesses Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
Codex Vaticanus (325–350; complete) Codex Sinaiticus (330–360; complete) Codex Bezae (~400; complete) Codex Alexandrinus (400–440; complete) Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (~450; complete)
Locations The events recorded in this chapter take place on "a high mountain" (traditionally understood to be Mount Tabor), in a nearby town, around Galilee and back in Capernaum. From Mount Tabor to Capernaum is about 41 kilometres (25 miles) along modern Highway 65.
Verse 1 There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with (or in) power. Anglican biblical scholar Edward Plumptre argues that this verse should be read with the final section of Mark 8 and suggests that the present arrangement may have been made with a view of connecting it with the Transfiguration as the fulfilment of the promise in this verse. This verse is numbered as Mark 8:39 in the Vulgate and its Douai-Rheims translation, and Irish commentator John Macevilly notes that "the Vulgate arrangement… is preferable" and matches the break between Matthew 16 and 17. Christopher Tuckett notes that this verse has been "much debated", and what exactly the kingdom of God refers to has been long discussed. It immediately follows Jesus' statement of "…when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels" (Mark 8:38) in the preceding chapter. This could simply refer to the subsequently-reported Transfiguration. Others have interpreted it as Jesus referring to his resurrection and/or the coming of Christianity. It is also recorded in Matthew 16:28 and Luke 9:27. Matthew adds the statement that "…then he will reward each person according to what he has done" between the two. Craig Keener and Tuckett argue that the statement is unfulfilled, and on this basis many writers "have seen here a genuine saying of Jesus". Christopher Hays and Keener argue that the Parousia was contingent on the repentance of Israel, and that unfulfilled eschatological expectations would not be failures or unusual in the Jewish prophetic context.
The Transfiguration
Six days pass from Jesus' previous teaching, and then Jesus takes Peter and the brothers James and John up an unnamed high mountain, which many came to believe was Mount Tabor. Suddenly, Jesus' clothes become dazzingly white, "... whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them", and Elijah and Moses appear. The disciples are stunned: for the first time, Mark uses the term Rabbi, and they ask what they should do and offer to put up shelters or 'tabernacles' for the assembled trio. A cloud overshadows them and a voice comes from the cloud saying "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!" (7) which is what Jesus heard the "voice from heaven" say when he was baptised by John the Baptist in Mark 1 (Mark 1:11) but now Mark has Peter, James, and John as witnesses to this. Elijah and Moses disappear and they head down the mountain. On the way down the mountain, Jesus tells them to keep what had happened to themselves until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. They do not ask him to clarify this but they question among themselves what this "rising from the dead" might mean. For Tuckett, the disciples' discussion "seems to imply that they do not understand what resurrection in general means. This seems incredible in historical terms: resurrection was a well-known idea in [the] Judaism of the period". He suggests that verse 10 may be either "a highly artificial note by Mark to bolster his motif of the disciples' lack of understanding", or a reference "specifically to the resurrection of the Son of Man" distinct from the general resurrection. In possibly a separate discussion, Peter, James and John then ask Jesus about the coming of Elijah (Elias), and he says:
... Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought. But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him. (Mark 9:12–13) KJV It was commonly believed that Elijah would reappear before the coming of the Messiah, as predicted in Malachi 4. Matthew 17:13 states that the three of them believed Jesus was comparing Elijah to John the Baptist. The imprisonment and death of John the Baptist (Mark 6:17–29) may be compared to the persecution of Elijah by Jezebel (1 Kings 19:2–3). Moses can be seen as a representative of the law and Elijah a representative of the prophets. This whole passage has echoes of Exodus 24, where clouds covered Mount Sinai for six days before Moses went up to receive the Ten Commandments. The original Greek uses the word metamorphothe which was translated into Latin as Trans Figura, the changing of appearance or of the body itself.
The Possessed Boy
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