2:25a
He did not need any testimony about man: This phrase indicates that no one had to tell Jesus about people. Jesus did not need someone to explain to him what people were like.
Here are other ways to translate this phrase:
didn’t need anyone to tell him about human nature (God’s Word)
-or-
No one had to tell him what people were like. (Contemporary English Version)
man: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates literally as man refers to people in general. In many languages it may be natural to translate it using a plural noun or pronoun. For example:
them (Good News Translation)
-or-
people (New Century Version)
2:25b
for He knew what was in a man: This expression tells the reason why Jesus did not need anyone to tell him what people were like (2:25a). The reason was that he already knew their inner thoughts and motives.
Here are other ways to translate this expression:
he could tell what someone had within (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
because he knew what was in people’s minds (New Century Version)
-or-
because he himself knew what was in their hearts (Good News Translation)
© 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.
