12:33
He said this to indicate the kind of death He was going to die: This sentence is a parenthetical comment by the author John. See the General Comment on 12:33. The expression He said this refers back to Jesus saying that he would be lifted up from the earth (12:32a). Here is another way to translate this sentence:
By saying this, he indicated how he was going to die (God’s Word)
to indicate the kind of death He was going to die: This phrase means that Jesus was telling them indirectly how he would die. The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as indicate means “show,” “make known,” or “make clear.” Jesus knew that he would die on a cross. He used a figure of speech, “lifted up from the earth,” to let the people know how he would die. Here are other ways to translate this whole sentence:
Jesus was talking about the way he would be put to death. (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
Jesus said this to show how he would die. (New Century Version)
the kind of death He was going to die: This phrase refers to the way that Jesus would die. It is best not to say that he would be crucified, though if necessary you can include it in a footnote. Here are other ways to translate this phrase:
the kind of death he would die (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
how he would die (New Century Version)
General Comment on 12:33
Verse 12:33 is a parenthetical statement by the author John. It explains the background of Jesus’ words. In some languages it may be natural to show that this is background information by using parentheses. For example:
(In saying this he indicated the kind of death he was going to suffer.) (Good News Translation)
-or-
(Now he said this to indicate clearly what kind of death he was going to die.) (NET Bible Bible)
© 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.