SIL Translator’s Notes on John 6:70

6:70a

Have I not chosen you, the Twelve?: This is a rhetorical question. It is in a form that expects the answer “yes.” Jesus used it to say that he had chosen the twelve (12) disciples. There are two ways to translate this question:

• Use a question. For example:

Have I not chosen the twelve of you? (Revised English Bible)

• Use a statement. For example:

I chose the twelve of you (New Living Translation (2004))

Translate this rhetorical question in a way that is natural in your language.

6:70b

Yet one of you is a devil: Jesus indicated that even though he had chosen the twelve disciples, he knew that one of them was evil. He did not say who this man was.

a devil: This phrase indicates that one of the disciples was controlled by the devil. Jesus was not saying that he was literally a devil.

Here are other ways to translate this phrase:

the devil (NET Bible Bible)
-or-
a servant of Satan (Easy English Bible)
-or-
under the control of Satan (Translation for Translators)

© 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.

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