Members of the Council and the apostles have been substituted in place of the pronouns “they” … “them” in order to make the pronominal referents explicit (see, for example, Jerusalem Bible “this so infuriated them that they wanted to put them to death”). They were so furious translates a verb which appears only here and in 7.54 in the New Testament; it literally means “to saw through,” and is used in both passages in Acts in a figurative sense.

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 .