Paragraph 21:7–9
21:7a
When we had finished our voyage from Tyre, we landed at Ptolemais: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as finished can be understood in two ways:
(1) It means continued here. The voyage from Tyre to Ptolemais was part of the longer voyage from Macedonia (20:3–6), or Miletus (20:17, 21:1) or Patara (21:2). For example:
We continued our voyage, sailing from Tyre to Ptolemais (Good News Translation)
(New International Version, Good News Translation, New American Bible, Revised Edition, NET Bible, New Century Version)
(2) It means finished here. The sea voyage on the ship that they got on in Patara ended at Ptolemais. For example:
The end of our voyage from Tyre came when we landed at Ptolemais (New Jerusalem Bible)
(Berean Standard Bible, Revised Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Standard Bible, God’s Word, English Standard Version, King James Version)
It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1).
from Tyre, we landed at Ptolemais: Ptolemais was forty kilometers (twenty-five miles) south of Tyre. It would be a four or five hour trip by ship with good winds.
Ptolemais: This name referred to a city on the Mediterranean coast of the province of Syria. It is now called Acre, and is part of the modern country of Israel.
21:7b
where we greeted the brothers: The word where introduces more information about Ptolemais. It does not imply that there are other cities named Ptolemais. In some languages it is more natural to begin a new sentence here. For example:
We greeted the brothers there.
the brothers: The word brothers refers to the believers. Here it probably refers to both men and women. See how you translated this word in 18:27.
© 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.