SIL Translator’s Notes on 1 Peter 2:24

2:24a

He Himself bore our sins: The phrase He himself refers to Jesus Christ.

bore our sins: The phrase bore our sins pictures our sins as a heavy weight that Christ voluntarily took upon himself. The illustration indicates that Christ took the blame/punishment for the evil things that we have done. Another way to translate bore is:

carried (Good News Translation)

in His body: This phrase indicates that it was as a human being that Christ bore our sins. If it is more natural, you could say:

on his head/back
-or-
in his human flesh

on the tree: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as tree is literally “wood” and refers to the cross. Some English versions translate tree as:

cross (New International Version, God’s Word)

2:24b–c

so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness: In the Greek text this is literally “so that dying to sins, we might live for righteousness.” For reasons of English style, the Berean Standard Bible has translated this as two separate purpose clauses. Translate it in whichever way is natural, but the idea of living for righteousness should be the main idea.

2:24b

die to sin: The phrase die to sin is a metaphor. It means that as far as sin is concerned, we should be like dead people, that is, not respond to the temptation to sin in any way. Some other ways to translate this phrase are:

so that we would stop sinning (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
so we would stop living for sin (New Century Version)

2:24c

and live to righteousness: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as live to righteousness means “live in order to do what is right.” Here are some other ways to translate this:

and live for what is right (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
we could live a life that has God’s approval (God’s Word)

2:24d

“By His stripes you are healed”: This is a more direct reference to Isaiah 53:5, and many versions, including the Berean Standard Bible, put it int quotation marks. The verb are healed is in the passive. If you need to use an active verb, you could say:

his wounds have healed you
-or-
because people wounded ⌊Christ⌋, you have become well/whole

stripes: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as stripes is literally “bruise.” It refers to the marks made on someone’s body by a beating or whipping. Here is another way to translate this:

cuts and bruises (Contemporary English Version)

you are healed: The phrase you are healed means that Peter’s readers had been made well from the harm or damage that sin had done to them. They had been made whole in a spiritual sense. Another way to translate this phrase is:

made well

© 2018 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.

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