11:40a

You fools!: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates literally as fools describes people who do not think clearly or rightly. It implies that they deliberately refuse to understand what is right. Another way to translate this word is:

You people who have no minds/thoughts/sense!

11:40b

Did not the One who made the outside make the inside as well?: This is a rhetorical question. Its function is to emphasize that God, who made the outside of people, also certainly made the inside.

Some ways to translate this emphasis are:

• As a rhetorical question. For example:

Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside? (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
The one who made the outside also made the inside. ⌊Isn’t that right?⌋

• As a statement. In this case, you should add a word or phrase to show the emphasis. For example:

You know that the one who made the outside made the inside also.
-or-
The same one who made what is outside also made what is inside. (New Century Version)

Translate this emphasis in a way that is most natural in your language.

the One: The phrase the One refers to God. For example:

Didn’t God make both the outside and the inside? (Contemporary English Version)

who made the outside make the inside: Jesus was referring to the outside and the inside of a person. By the outside he meant the whole physical body. By the inside he meant the part of a person that cannot be seen: the mind, affections, and will. God was also concerned that the inside of a person should be clean.

Some other ways to translate this are:

he who made man’s body also made his heart/spirit/soul
-or-
God who created ⌊what is seen on⌋ the outside also created ⌊what is not seen on⌋ the inside.

General Comment on 11:40b

Jesus implied here that it is important for a person’s inner being (soul/mind/heart) to be clean/holy. It is foolish to clean only the outside. So the Pharisees should have been concerned about holiness, not just physical cleanliness. In some languages, it may be necessary to make this explicit in the text or in a footnote. For example:

so it is necessary that your inside/heart be clean, just like the outside of your body
-or-
It is important that your heart be clean, not only your hands

© 2009, 2010, 2013 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.