8:52a
Meanwhile: The word Meanwhile is not in the Greek text. The Berean Standard Bible has supplied it in order to make the order of events clear in English. In other languages it may not be necessary to supply anything.
everyone: In this context everyone refers to all the people who were in the house when Jesus came. These would have been neighbors, friends, and relatives of Jairus as well as professional mourners.
weeping and mourning: The Greek verbs that the Berean Standard Bible translates as weeping and mourning refer here to the way that Jews mourned when someone died. The verb weeping refers to weeping or crying out loudly as an expression of grief or sorrow. The verb mourning can have several meanings. Here it can refer in general to formal grieving. It can also refer specifically to a person beating his breast with his fists to express intense grief.
Together these verbs describe the way that people weep and mourn when someone dies. Other ways to translate these two verbs are:
weeping and lamenting (New American Standard Bible)
-or-
crying and showing how sad they were (God’s Word)
In some languages there may be one specific expression with this meaning. If that is true in your language, you can use it instead of two different expressions.
8:52b
Stop weeping: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Stop weeping is literally “do not cry.” In this context Jesus implied that the people should also stop all the other ways that they were mourning over the girl. Other ways to translate this are:
Do not cry any more
-or-
Do not weep (Revised Standard Version)
8:52c
In this part of the verse Jesus gave the reason why the people should stop wailing. The Greek text has a conjunction that several English versions translate as “for.” Most English versions do not translate the conjunction, since the connection is clearly implied. Use a natural way in your language to indicate that 8:52c is the reason or explanation for Jesus’ command in 8:52b.
she is not dead but asleep: Jesus used the word asleep here to refer to the death of a person who will be raised back to life. (See John 11:11–14 and 1 Thessalonians 5:10 for other examples of this meaning.) Jesus knew that the girl was actually dead, and he did not mean that she was only asleep or in a coma. However, the mourners wrongly understood Jesus’ words in this way, so you should translate them so that that interpretation is possible.
You may want to include a footnote here to explain this. For example:
Jesus knew that the girl was dead. He said that she was sleeping because he knew that he would soon make her live again. Jesus also used the word “sleep” to talk about the death of Lazarus (John 11:11–14), another person whom he raised from the dead.
General Comment on 8:52b–c
In some languages it may be more natural to reorder 8:52b–c so that the reason for the exhortation is given first. For example:
52cShe is not dead but only sleeping. 52bSo, do not wail.
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