2:15a

who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets: Here Paul refers to the Jews as a collective whole across time. The Jews who killed …their own prophets refers to people who killed some of the Old Testament prophets from many generations ago. This refers to different people than those who plotted to kill Jesus, which happened only 20 years or so before Paul wrote this letter. In both cases, although the Jews are referred to as a whole, it was only certain people, or certain groups of people who wanted to have them killed.

who killed both the Lord Jesus: Although it was Roman soldiers who actually crucified Jesus, it was the Jewish leaders who handed Jesus over to the Romans and who were therefore responsible for his death. Notice that this group of Jews was not the same group of Jews who had persecuted the Judean churches (2:14b).

their own prophets: Paul was referring to the Old Testament prophets here. A literal translation of Paul’s words in some languages may imply that the Jews had killed all the prophets, so you may need to make it clear that it was only some prophets who were killed. For example:

who killed some of their own prophets

This is not referring to a specific event where many prophets were killed. It is referring broadly to the many generations during the Old Testament period where prophets were killed. Translate in a way that refers to many years of repeated incidents with different generations of people.

2:15b

and drove us out as well: The Greek word ekdiōkō, which the Berean Standard Bible translates as drove…out, can have several meanings. The commentators disagree about what it means in this verse. There are two possibilities:

(1) Paul used it with its literal meaning “to drive out.” This is what the Jews did to Paul in Thessalonica and Berea (Acts 17:5–10, 13–15).

(Berean Standard Bible, Revised Standard Version, New International Version (2011 Revision), Revised English Bible, Contemporary English Version, New Century Version)

(2) Paul used the word with the secondary meaning “to persecute.” The way that Paul and his companions were being “driven out” is just one example of how they were “being persecuted.”

(King James Version, Good News Translation, God’s Word, NET Bible, New Jerusalem Bible)

In the context, the first option (1) makes the most sense and is therefore recommended. The Thessalonians would easily remember how Paul and his companions had been chased away from Thessalonica.

us: Most commentators agree that us refers specifically to Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy.

2:15c

They are displeasing to God: Commentators do not agree about how this should be understood here. There are two possibilities:

(1) The Jews were displeasing to God by the way that they were hindering Paul from preaching to the non-Jews (2:16a).

(2) The Jews were displeasing to God by the way that they were persecuting Christians.

Most English versions are ambiguous. It is recommended that you leave your translation ambiguous here if that is possible. However if you wish to make the connection clear, the Display shows one way to express the first interpretation (1).

2:15d-2:16a

and hostile to all men, hindering us from telling the Gentiles how they may be saved: The Jews were hostile to all people because they were trying to prevent believing people from sharing the Gospel with others. In Acts 13:45, 13:49, 14:2, 14:19, 17:5, and 17:13 there are examples of how the Jews tried to stop Paul from preaching to the non-Jews. They did not want God to save the non-Jews and cause them to also become part of his people. Here is another way to translate these verse parts:

they oppose everybody, trying to stop us(excl) from speaking to the non-Jews

© 2002 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.