In Good News Translation this verse is a continuation of the last sentence begun in verse 18. In the Greek text verses 17-19 comprise only one sentence (see Revised Standard Version), but the places at which new sentences are begun will depend entirely upon the demands of the receptor language. In any case the subject of deliver is still the chief priests and the teachers of the Law.
Deliver is the same word as in the previous verse.
Gentiles (the word used by most English translations) translates the Greek word most frequently used of non-Jews. “Non-Jews” is certainly the most common rendering, but New English Bible translates “the foreign power,” and Phillips has “the heathen.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “the foreigners who do not know God.”
Mocked (Good News Translation “make fun of”) translates the same verb used in 27.29, 31, 41; elsewhere it is used only in 2.16.
Scourged: prisoners condemned to death were beaten with a whip before being executed. This punishment was severe, and it was illegal to beat a Roman citizen with a whip (see Acts 22.25, where a different word is used of the same kind of beating). Some translations have had simply “beat,” but the word here means “beat with a whip,” so “flog” or “whip” will be better.
Crucified indicates execution by Roman authorities. Jewish execution was of four kinds: stoning, burning (pouring a heated substance down a person’s throat), beheading, and strangling. Crucifixion involved attaching someone to crossed wooden beams or boards (usually by nailing) and leaving him hanging there until he died. If the translation does not indicate clearly to readers that crucified includes the semantic feature of execution or death (for example, “nailed to boards” may not clearly imply death), then the thrust of what Jesus is saying is lost. So this feature needs to be made explicit in the translation; for example, translators can say “executed (or, killed) on a cross” or “executed by being nailed to crossed boards.”
On the third day (so also New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible), the same expression used in 16.21 and 17.23, is translated “three days later” by Good News Translation. The form of the expression is slightly different from the parallel in Mark 10.34 (literally “after three days”).
Will be raised (New English Bible “will be raised to life again”) translates the same verb form used in 17.23 (see comment there and at 16.21). As there, if the passive form cannot be used, then the agent, God, can be made explicit: “God will raise him to life again.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .