SIL Translator’s Notes on John 8:59

8:59a

At this: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as At this here introduces what Jesus’ opponents did as a result of what Jesus had just said. They understood that Jesus said that he was God and reacted strongly to it.

they: This word refers to the people Jesus was talking with, the Jewish leaders who opposed him.

picked up stones to throw at Him: This phrase indicates that these people wanted to kill Jesus. They started to pick up stones from the ground so that they could throw them at him and kill him. This was the traditional penalty for blasphemy. See Leviticus 24:16. These people understood that Jesus said that he was God. They thought that this was not true, and that Jesus therefore blasphemed, speaking evil about God. In some languages it may be good to write a footnote here, and tell why the people wanted to throw stones at Jesus. For example:

The people wanted to kill Jesus because he said that he was God. They believed that this was blasphemy, speech against God.

8:59b

But: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as But here introduces a surprising result of their action in the previous clause. The people picked up stones to stone Jesus, but they did not stone him. He hid so they could not do it.

Jesus was hidden: Jesus in some way hid himself from the angry crowd. The text does not say how this happened. It is best to translate this literally.

8:59c

and went out of the temple area:
This phrase indicates that Jesus left the temple area safely. The people did not stone him.

© 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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