complete verse (Acts 17:9)

Following are a number of back-translations of Acts 17:9:

  • Uma: “Finally, Yason and the other believers in Yesus were fined, and then released.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Then Jason and his companions were made-to-pay bail by the officials and then they were sent home.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And as for Jason and his companions, the officials caused them to pay a fine for their bodies and then they let them go.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “And they made-Jason and his fellow believers -post-bail, then they released-them.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Therefore, what those officials did was, they caused Jason and his companions to put down a large amount (of money), which would be returned provided Pablo-and-co did no more of that making trouble of theirs. When they had put down what was being caused to be given, Jason-and-co were sent home.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Acts 17:9

The required amount of money to be released translates a technical term which refers to the security or money which was given to the city officials and which would have been forfeited by Jason had the offense been repeated. Although the subject of the verb made … pay is not explicit in Greek, the context makes it clear that the authorities are the subject.

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 .

SIL Translator’s Notes on Acts 17:9

17:9a

they collected bond from Jason and the others: The city officials required Jason and the other believers to pay a sum of money. The officials made Jason and the others promise something. They would get their money back when they did as promised. The city officials probably made them promise to make Paul and Silas leave the city. They may have also made them promise to cause no further trouble for a certain period of time. Other ways to translate this clause are:

when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest (English Standard Version)
-or-
the officials forced Jason and the other believers to post bond (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
they made Jason and the others put some money in their hands and promise to correct the problem, at which time they would get their money back
-or-
they required Jason and the others to promise to deal with this issue. They also required them to put a sum of money before them until this issue was dealt with.

they: The pronoun they refers to the city officials here.

17:9b

released them: This clause refers to ending the arrest. Jason and the other believers were then allowed to go where they chose to go. Other ways to translate this are:

allowed them to go ⌊home⌋

© 2001, 2021 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
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.