By an Egyptian has been added to the first clause of this sentence so as to let the reader know immediately who it was that was mistreating the Israelite. The verb which the Good News Translation has translated killing literally means “to hit,” but here the meaning is extended to “strike down,” that is, “to kill.”

The translation of verse 24 is complicated by problems of pronominal reference to three different persons: Moses, the man who was being mistreated, and the Egyptian. In some translations the closest natural equivalent is “saw an Egyptian beating one of the Israelites, therefore Moses went to help the Israelite and took revenge on the Egyptian; he killed him.”

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 .