19:48a

Yet they could not find a way to do so: This clause contrasts with the preceding verse, so the Berean Standard Bible begins it with Yet. Although the Jewish leaders were continually trying to cause Jesus’ death, they were unsuccessful.

The clause they could not find a way to do so indicates that the Jewish religious leaders were unable to capture and kill Jesus secretly. They wanted to arrest Jesus when he was alone. Then they wanted to make the Romans believe that Jesus deserved to die. They could not find a good opportunity to do either of these things. Here is another way to translate this:

But they did not know how they could do it (New Century Version)

19:48b

because all the people hung on His words: This clause gives the reason that the Jewish leaders were unable to have Jesus killed. All the people were continually with him, listening to him teach. The Jewish leaders could not arrest Jesus secretly because these people would have opposed such an act against him. Express this reason in a natural way in your language.

all the people hung on His words: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as all the people hung on His words is an idiom. It indicates that everyone was eagerly listening to everything that Jesus said. Some other ways to translate this phrase are:

all the people were listening closely to him (New Century Version)
-or-
all the people listened with full/great attention
-or-
all the people were eager to hear him (God’s Word)

all the people: The phrase all the people refers to the large crowds of people that were coming to the temple during this time. It does not literally mean all the people in Jerusalem. It probably included many of the people who lived in Jerusalem and also many people who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration.

General Comment on 19:48a–b

In some languages it may be more natural to change the order of clauses in this verse. For example:

But/Yet 48bbecause all the people hung on his words, 48athe Jewish leaders could not find a way to kill him.

© 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.