6:4
Now the Jewish Feast of the Passover was near: This sentence is parenthetical information. You may want to put it in parentheses. For example:
(Now the Jewish feast of the Passover was near.) (NET Bible)
The Passover is the name of a Jewish festival that took place once a year. The term Passover refers to the time in Exodus 12 when God passed over the houses of the Hebrews (later called Jews). The firstborn children of the Egyptians were killed that night, but he did not harm anyone in the Hebrews’ houses. He passed over their houses when he saw the blood of a lamb on the doorposts (boards around the door).
This is the second Passover mentioned in the Gospel of John. The first is mentioned in 2:13a, 23. See the note there, and the suggested footnote. Use the same term for Passover here and there.
Here are other ways to translate this clause:
It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration. (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
It was almost the time for the Jewish Passover Feast. (New Century Version)
Now: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Now is not a time word. In this context it introduces background information. Introduce the background, parenthetical information in a way that is natural in your language.
the Jewish Feast of the Passover: This phrase indicates that the Passover was a feast celebrated by the Jewish people.
© 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.
