I will hear you translates a legal technical term (appearing only here in the New Testament), and means something like “to hold a hearing.” The equivalent in some languages is “I will listen to your case,” “I will listen to what you are accused of,” or “I will listen and judge what you have done.” The addition of the term “judge” is sometimes necessary to indicate the official character of such a hearing.

In order to avoid the possibility of ambiguity for English readers, the Good News Translation has rendered the Greek pronoun “him” by Paul.

The phrase kept under guard may be translated as “had soldiers watching him” or even “commanded soldiers to watch him.”

Herod’s palace (rendered literally as “Herod’s praetorium” by the Revised Standard Version) is a reference to the palace which Herod the Great built and which was used as the headquarters by the Roman governors in Palestine.

The translation of Herod’s palace should not imply that Herod was still alive and therefore using the palace. This phrase may be rendered in some languages as “the palace that Herod had built.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .