Paragraph 22:49–51
22:49a
Those around Jesus saw what was about to happen: This clause indicates that Jesus’ disciples realized what was about to happen. Judas had betrayed Jesus, and people in the crowd had come to arrest him. In some languages it may be natural to translate this clause as a separate sentence:
Then Jesus’ followers realized what was about to happen. So…
Those around Jesus: The Greek expression that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Those around Jesus is more literally “those around him.” Here it refers to the disciples. Another way to translate it is:
Jesus’ disciples who were standing around him
saw: In this context saw means “understood” or “realized.”
what was about to happen: The phrase what was about to happen refers to the fact that the crowd was about to arrest Jesus. In some languages it may be helpful or necessary to make this explicit. For example:
that the crowd had come to arrest Jesus
22:49b
and said: The phrase and said introduces what the disciples asked Jesus. Probably one of the disciples spoke for the group. Some other ways to introduce the question are:
they asked Jesus
-or-
they said to Jesus
Lord, should we strike with our swords?: Here the disciples asked Jesus if he wanted them to use their swords to fight against the crowd. They wanted to defend Jesus. It is clear from 22:50 that one of the disciples did not wait for Jesus to reply. Some other ways to translate this are:
Lord, ⌊do you want⌋ us(excl) to fight/attack them with our swords?
-or-
Lord, shall we(excl) fight them? We brought our swords!
-or-
Lord, should we use our swords to fight? (God’s Word)
we: The word we here does not include Jesus. The disciples offered to fight for him.
our swords: The phrase our swords probably refers back to the two swords mentioned in 22:38. See the note at 22:38a.
© 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.