{From the marketplace} (ap' agoras). Ceremonial defilement
was inevitable in the mixing with men in public. This agora
from ageir(935c) to collect or gather, was a public forum in every
town where the people gathered like the courthouse square in
American towns. The disciples were already ceremonially defiled.
{Wash themselves} (aptis(936e)tai). First aorist middle
subjunctive of aptiz(935c), dip or immerse. Westcott and Hort put

antis(936e)tai in the text translated "sprinkle themselves" in the
margin of the Revised Version, because Aleph, B, and some of the
best cursives have it. Gould terms 
antis(936e)tai "a manifest
emendation," to get rid of the difficulty of dipping or bathing
the whole body. Meyer says: "The statement proceeds by way of
climax: before eating they wash the hands always. When they come
from market they take a bath before eating." This is not the
place to enter into any controversy about the meaning of
aptiz(935c), to dip, 
antiz(935c), to sprinkle, and ecche(935c), to pour,
all used in the New Testament. The words have their distinctive
meanings here as elsewhere. Some scribes felt a difficulty about
the use of aptis(936e)tai here. The Western and Syrian classes of
manuscripts add "and couches" (kai klin(936e)) at the end of the
sentence. Swete considers the immersions of beds (aptismous
klin(936e)) "an incongruous combination." But Gould says: "Edersheim
shows that the Jewish ordinance required immersions,
aptismous, of these vessels." We must let the Jewish
scrupulosity stand for itself, though "and couches" is not
supported by Aleph, B L D Bohairic, probably not genuine.