23:27a
This man was seized by the Jews: This clause is passive. Some languages must use an active clause. For example:
The Jews had seized this man (God’s Word)
and they were about to kill him: Here the phrase about to indicates that the Jews were trying to kill Paul but had not killed him yet (21:31). Another way to translate this clause is:
they were trying to kill him
23:27b–c
I came with my troops to rescue him. For I had learned that he is a Roman citizen: The commander said here in his letter (though it was not true) that he learned that Paul was a Roman first, and then for that reason, he went and rescued Paul. Other ways to translate this connection are:
I came up with the detachment and rescued him, because I had learned that he was a Roman citizen (NET Bible)
-or-
I learned that he is a Roman citizen, so I went with my soldiers and rescued him. (Good News Translation)
23:27b
A contrast is implied from the context, so many English versions add the conjunction “but” here. For example:
but I came with my troops and rescued him (New International Version)
troops: This word refers to a group of soldiers. 21:32 does not tell us the number of soldiers, but it was probably many soldiers to make the mob stop beating Paul.
23:27c
I had learned: Here this clause indicates that someone told the commander that Paul was a Roman.
he is a Roman citizen: Paul was a Roman citizen at the time that the commander wrote this letter.
a Roman citizen: The word citizen refers to one of a group of people whom the Roman government gave certain rights and privileges. Other ways to translate this phrase are:
Roman by right
-or-
have Roman citizenship
-or-
legally a person of Rome
-or-
belong to Rome
-or-
on the list of Roman people
See how you translated this phrase in 22:25.
© 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.