SIL Translator’s Notes on Acts 2:47

2:47a

praising God: This phrase means “express approval of God, speak well of God.” In some languages there may be an idiom to express this.

enjoying the favor of all the people: This clause indicates that all of the other people in Jerusalem thought well of the believers. At that time, people had not yet begun to oppose them, but instead everyone was kind to the believers. Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

all the people were pleased with them
-or-
were liked by all the people (New Century Version)

2:47b

the Lord added to their number: This clause indicates that every day more people responded to the call of God to believe in Jesus. They then joined the group of believers. Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

the Lord added to their group (Good News Translation)
-or-
the Lord added to their community (New Jerusalem Bible)

the Lord: Some scholars believe that the word Lord refers here to Jesus. Other scholars believe that it refers here to God. If possible, do not add “Jesus” or “God” in your translation. But some languages must add one or the other. If that is true in your language, add “God” because of 2:39b.

their number: The word their refers to those who were already believers.

those who were being saved: The clause is passive. Some languages must use an active clause. For example:

those whom God saved
-or-
Every day the Lord saved people (God’s Word)

were being saved: The Greek tense indicates that this event was ongoing. It happened every day.

saved: See how you translated this word in 2:21.

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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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