SIL Translator’s Notes on Acts 21:23

21:23a

Therefore: In Greek this verse begins with a conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates literally as Therefore. This indicates that what follows is what these people wanted Paul to do as a result of the situation they described in the previous verses.

do what we advise you: This is a command. The elders were leaders over Paul. They were being direct, but not rude when they spoke to Paul here. In some languages this command would be communicated in a different way. For example:

This is what we want you to do (Good News Translation)
-or-
this is what we suggest that you should do (New Jerusalem Bible)

Your translation should suggest that they expected Paul to follow their plan.

21:23b

There are four men with us: The four men were probably Jewish believers and belonged to the church in Jerusalem.

have taken a vow: A vow is a solemn promise. These men had promised something to God. Other ways to translate this phrase are:

have made a promise to God (New Century Version)
-or-
have promised God about something

See how you translated the word vow in 18:18.

© 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.

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