10:2a

He held in his hand a small scroll, which lay open: The clause and phrase He held in his hand a small scroll, which lay open explain how the angel held the scroll. The scroll was partly unrolled and lay on his open hand. Other ways to translate this clause are:

He had a small scroll open in his hand. (Good News Translation)
-or-
He held a small, opened scroll in his hand. (God’s Word)

a small scroll: This scroll was a different one than the scroll with the seven seals.

scroll: The word scroll refers to a long piece of paper that is written on. Then it is rolled into a cylinder shape. See how you translated this word in 5:1.

10:2b

He placed his right foot on the sea: Here the Greek word the Berean Standard Bible translates literally as placed means “placed” or “put.” The Good News Translation translates this as:

He put his right foot on the sea

on the sea: Here the word on probably indicates that the angel’s foot was on the surface of the sea. His foot was probably not sunk into the sea.

sea: The word sea refers to a large body of water. A sea is often so large that someone standing on one side cannot see the other side. The sea is symbolic, so you should not name a particular sea. See how you translated this word in 5:13 or 8:8.

his left foot on the land: The phrase “He placed/put” is implied from the previous clause but not repeated. In some languages it is more natural to repeat some or all of the phrase. For example:

⌊he put⌋ his left foot on the land

© 2020 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.