19:14a
In Greek this verse begins with a conjunction that is often translated as “Now.” Here it introduces some background information. It is not a time word referring to the present. Some English versions, like the Berean Standard Bible, leave this word implied.
It was the day of Preparation for the Passover: The Greek text that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the day of Preparation for the Passover is more literally “the preparation of the Passover.” This probably refers to the Friday of Passover week. That was the day of preparation for the Sabbath that happened during Passover week. Here are other ways to translate this Greek phrase:
It was…Preparation Day of Passover week (New Century Version)
-or-
…on the Friday of the Passover festival (God’s Word)
the day of Preparation: This phrase usually refers to Friday, when Jewish people prepared for the Sabbath. On the Sabbath, Saturday, they did not work, so it was necessary to prepare meals and clean the previous day. See Mark 15:42 and Luke 23:54.
Passover: Passover is the Jewish feast that celebrates how God rescued the Jewish people from being slaves in Egypt. This term is also used in John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; and 18:28. For more information see the note on John 2:13a. Also see how you translated the word there.
Passover could be on any day of the week. The word Passover was sometimes used to refer to the whole week of the festival. That is probably the case here.
19:14b
about the sixth hour: The Berean Standard Bible translates the Greek phrase literally as about the sixth hour. Jewish people normally started counting the hours of the day from sunrise, about 6 a.m., so this would have been about 12 noon. The same expression is used in 4:6. See the note there. Translate this phrase in a way that is natural in your language. For example:
It was then almost noon (Good News Translation)
-or-
in the late morning
General Comment on 19:14a–b
In some languages it may be natural to reverse the order of the information in 19:14a–b. For example:
14b It was then almost noon 14a on the Friday of the Passover ⌊week/festival⌋ .
19:14c
And Pilate said to the Jews: The word the Berean Standard Bible translates as Pilate is literally the pronoun “he” and refers to Pilate.
the Jews: This phrase refers to the same group as mentioned in 19:12, the Jews who were accusing Jesus. See how you translated it there.
Here is your King!: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Here is calls attention to what follows. See how you translated this expression in 1:29. Here it means that the people should look at Jesus. For example:
Look at your king! (Contemporary English Version)
your King: Pilate called Jesus their King because that is what the chief priests accused him of saying that he was. But Pilate did not think that Jesus was really their king. He was mocking the Jews, because they should be protecting their king, not asking for him to be killed.
your: This pronoun is plural and refers to the Jewish people in general.
© 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.