SIL Translator’s Notes on Acts 28:19

28:19a

the Jews: Paul implied the Jewish leaders here. In some languages a literal translation would wrongly indicate Jews in general. If so, include the implied information:

the Jewish ⌊leaders

objected: The Greek word is literally “spoke against.” The Jewish leaders told the Roman authorities that Paul had committed crimes against the Jewish people and against God and did not want the Romans to set him free. For example:

opposed this (Good News Translation)

28:19b

I was compelled: The Jewish leaders did not want the Romans to release Paul. This caused Paul to have no other way to avoid being killed by the Jewish leaders than to appeal to Caesar. This clause is passive. Some languages must use an active clause. For example:

I felt it necessary (New Living Translation (2004))

appeal to Caesar: Paul asked that Caesar decide whether the accusations against him were true or not. See how you translated a similar phrase in 25:11 (“I appeal to Caesar”) or 26:32 (“if he had not appealed to Caesar”).

28:19c

even though I have no charge to bring against my nation: This indicates that Paul would not accuse the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem of wrong doing when he went to the Roman court. That was not the reason he appealed to Caesar. Paul reassured the Jewish leaders in Rome of this. For example:

even though I had no accusation to make against my own people (Good News Translation)

my nation: This refers to the Jews. Other ways to translate this are:

my own people (New International Version)
-or-
my own people, ⌊the Jews

Paul included the Jewish leaders in this phrase.

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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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