SIL Translator’s Notes on Acts 19:36

19:36a–b

The Greek begins with a word that many English versions translate literally as “Therefore.” It introduces a conclusion of what the city clerk said in 19:35. The city clerk now told the crowd what they should do.

Since these things are undeniable, you ought to be calm: The word Since introduces the reason that the people should be quiet. For example:

Nobody can deny these things. So then, you must calm down (Good News Translation)

19:36a

these things are undeniable: This clause in Greek is literally “these (things) being undeniable.” The city clerk believed everyone would agree that the Ephesians guarded the temple and that the stone fell from heaven. Other ways to translate this clause are:

Nobody can contradict this (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
Everybody knows/agrees that those things are true

19:36b

you ought to be calm: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as calm refers to being calm. It also refers to preventing oneself from doing something. Other ways to translate this clause are:

you must calm down (Good News Translation)
-or-
you must calm/restrain yourselves

ought to: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as ought to is literally “must.”

not do anything rash: The word rash refers to doing something without first thinking about the consequences of the action. If someone killed or hurt Paul because of Demetrius’ words, that person would still be responsible for those actions. Other ways to translate this clause are:

not do anything reckless (Good News Translation)
-or-
do not do anything unless you have thought about it first

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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.

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