23:49a

But all those who knew Jesus: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as But can also be translated as “And.” However, here it probably introduces a contrast between the people who went away in 23:48 and the people who knew Jesus. Some English versions do not have a conjunction here. Introduce the people who knew Jesus in a natural way in your language.

all those who knew Jesus: The phrase all those who knew Jesus refers to the people who knew Jesus personally. They were friends who were there at the crucifixion. Some other ways to translate the phrase are:

All his friends (God’s Word)
-or-
All those who knew Jesus personally (Good News Translation)
-or-
all his acquaintances (Revised Standard Version)

The word all does not imply that every friend of Jesus was there. It distinguishes this group of friends from the other people there. One way to make this clear in English is:

His friends had all been standing at a distance (Revised English Bible)

In some languages it may be more natural not to include the word all here. For example:

those who were close friends of Jesus (New Century Version)
-or-
Jesus’ friends (New Living Translation (2004))

23:49b

including the women: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as including the women is literally “and the women.” It implies that the women were among the other people there who knew Jesus well.

Connect this phrase with 23:49a in a natural way in your language. In some languages it is not appropriate to refer to women as “close friends” of a male leader. Your translation should not imply an immoral relationship.

In some languages it may be natural to change the order of clauses in this verse. See the General Comment on 23:49a–c below for an example.

who had followed Him from Galilee: This phrase refers to women who had been with Jesus in Galilee. (See 8:2–3.) They had come with him and his other followers to Jerusalem. Some other ways to translate the phrase are:

who had come with him from Galilee (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
who had accompanied him from Galilee (Revised English Bible)

23:49c

stood at a distance: The phrase stood at a distance indicates that Jesus’ friends were standing some distance away from Jesus. They were close enough to see and hear what happened, but they were not very near him. Probably the soldiers kept friends from coming too near. Describe this distance in a natural way in your language.

watching these things: The phrase watching these things indicates here that Jesus’ friends and the women were watching all that was happening. They saw it and paid attention to it. Another way to translate the phrase is:

seeing/watching what was happening

General Comment on 23:49a–c

In some languages it may be more natural to reorder the information in this verse. For example:

49aBut all those who had known Jesus personally 49cstood at a distance and watched what happened. 49bAmong them were the women who had followed him from Galilee.

© 2009, 2010, 2013 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.