Acts 21:31-33

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Acts 21:31 tn Grk “seeking.”
2. Acts 21:31 tn Or “information” (originally concerning a crime; BDAG 1050 s.v. φάσις).
3. Acts 21:31 tn Grk “went up”; this verb is used because the report went up to the Antonia Fortress where the Roman garrison was stationed.
4. Acts 21:31 tn Grk “the chiliarch” (an officer in command of a thousand soldiers). In Greek the term χιλίαρχος (chiliarchos) literally described the “commander of a thousand,” but it was used as the standard translation for the Latin tribunus militum or tribunus militare, the military tribune who commanded a cohort of 600 men.
5. Acts 21:31 sn A cohort was a Roman military unit of about 600 soldiers, one-tenth of a legion.
6. Acts 21:31 tn BDAG 953 s.v. συγχέω has “Pass. w. act.force be in confusion…ὅλη συγχύννεται ᾿Ιερουσαλήμ 21:31.”
7. Acts 21:32 tn Grk “who.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences, the relative pronoun (“who”) was translated as a pronoun (“he”) and a new sentence was begun here in the translation.
8. Acts 21:32 tn Grk “taking…ran down.” The participle κατέδραμεν (katedramen) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.
9. Acts 21:32 sn See the note on the word centurion in 10:1.
10. Acts 21:32 tn Grk “to them”; the referent (the crowd) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
11. Acts 21:32 tn Grk “seeing.” The participle ἰδόντες (idontes) has been taken temporally.
12. Acts 21:32 tn Grk “the chiliarch” (an officer in command of a thousand soldiers). See note on the term “commanding officer” in v. 31.
13. Acts 21:32 sn The mob stopped beating Paul because they feared the Romans would arrest them for disturbing the peace and for mob violence. They would let the Roman officials take care of the matter from this point on.
14. Acts 21:33 tn Grk “the chiliarch” (an officer in command of a thousand soldiers). See note on the term “commanding officer” in v. 31.
15. Acts 21:33 tn Grk “seized.”
16. Acts 21:33 tn The two chains would be something like handcuffs (BDAG 48 s.v. ἅλυσις and compare Acts 28:20).
17. Acts 21:33 tn Grk “and he.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was begun in the translation, and καί (kai) has been replaced with a semicolon. “Then” has been supplied after “he” to clarify the logical sequence.
18. Acts 21:33 tn Grk “and what it is”; this has been simplified to “what.”