Mark 6:45-51 And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before to Bethsaida… This word "toiling" is quite inadequate to express the full force of the term. One of the oldest of English versions has it, "harassing themselves." Tyndale renders it, "troubled." Alford suggests, "distressed," which is the best word of all, and the one which our new revision adopts — "distressed in rowing." Those skilled fishermen evidently had a hard time of it. They needed to put forth the most violent and persistent efforts in order to keep the small boat from being dashed to pieces before the hurricane. And of course they became positively tired out, and their faith had something like a melancholy failure. In religious experience we are often more disheartened than we need to be, because some perverse disposition misleads us to contrast our states of low enjoyment with remembered disclosures of high exhilaration under extraordinary excitement. The midnight of commonplace rowing appears more gloomy and unwelcome just because the previous noon was so abundantly blessed with gifts and graces. Our favours seem hopelessly dull, simply because they were so lately revived into unusual strain, and are now worn out by the exalted indulgence. The changes begun in the circumstances are continued in our bodies, and so these moods grow reciprocally depressing. What we mourn over as base coldness, sometimes is nothing but natural reaction. Oftentimes our most heavy seasons of despondency are brought about by mere physical illness, or unusual prostration from distemper Or overwork. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people. |
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