4:17a

But the Lord stood by me: In 4:16–17, Paul contrasted those who deserted him with the Lord, who had not deserted him. To express the contrast, you might be able to say,

The Lord, however, stood by me….

the Lord: The word Lord here probably refers to Christ.

stood by me: The words stood by me are a figure of speech that mean that Jesus stayed with him to help him. Use this figure of speech in your translation if people understand it. Or, your language may have an expression that describes a person who is not afraid to be the only one with you when the authorities accuse you of having done something wrong.

4:17b

so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed: The judge asked Paul what his enemies had accused him of doing. The judge’s questions gave Paul an opportunity to clearly tell the good news about Jesus Christ to the judge and to all the other people who were in the court on that day.

4:17c

and all the Gentiles would hear it: There were people from many different nations in Rome, in addition to the Roman citizens. Some Jews were present. But most of the people there were Gentiles (that is, non-Jews). Therefore, when the judge gave Paul the opportunity to defend himself in the court of the Roman government, many non-Jews heard him preach the gospel.

4:17d

So I was delivered from the mouth of the lion: The clause I was delivered from the mouth of the lion is a very dramatic metaphor which means:

I was delivered from death
-or-
Christ saved me from death.

This was a live figure of speech at the time when Paul wrote, because the Roman government sometimes punished people by forcing them to stand in an arena where lions could attack them and kill them.

This was Paul’s way of saying that the Roman judge did not condemn him to death. The Roman judge could have decided that Paul must die. But Christ rescued Paul from this very great danger by causing the judge to decide to let him live. Paul compared this to being in a place where a lion was going to attack him, and Christ rescued him immediately before the lion could attack him.

© 2003 by SIL International®

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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.