SIL Translator’s Notes on Acts 23:20

23:20a–b

ask you to bring Paul to the Sanhedrin tomorrow: Some languages need to express to bring Paul to the Sanhedrin tomorrow as direct speech. For example:

ask you, ‘Could you bring Paul down to the Sanhedrin tomorrow?’

Sanhedrin: The word Sanhedrin is a Greek word that means “council.” See how you translated this word in 4:15 or 23:15.

23:20a

The Jews: Paul’s nephew used the general phrase The Jews. It probably refers to the Jewish leaders of the Sanhedrin and perhaps not even all of them (23:7–9).

In some languages a literal translation would wrongly refer to all of the Jews. If that is true in your language, indicate the correct meaning. For example:

The Jewish authorities (Good News Translation)
-or-
Some Jews (New Living Translation (2004))

23:20c

on the pretext of: This phrase in Greek is literally “as intending.” The messengers would say that the Sanhedrin wanted to examine Paul once again. But they would lie so that the commander would bring Paul out of the barracks so that the conspirators could kill him. Translate this phrase in the same way as in 23:15.

acquiring more information: The Greek words are literally “to question more accurately something.” The nephew did not know what questions the Jewish leaders would ask, so he used the word “something.” Another way to translate this Greek clause is:

to ask about things more accurately

See how you translated “examining his case more carefully” in 23:15.

about him: The questions about Paul would be about the accusations against him. For example, the New Revised Standard Version says,

they were going to inquire more thoroughly into his case

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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.

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