24:39a

Look at My hands and My feet: Here Jesus told his followers to look at his hands and his feet so that they would recognize him. John 20:25–27 makes explicit that his hands and feet still had scars. These scars came from the wounds that the soldiers made when they nailed his hands and feet to the cross. Those scars clearly proved that he was Jesus. Some other ways to translate this clause are:

Look at my hands. Look at my feet. (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
See the scars on my hands and my feet.

24:39b

It is I Myself: Jesus used the statement It is I Myself to assure his disciples that he was really the same Jesus whom they had known before. This statement implies the reason for Jesus’ commands in 24:39a and 24:39c. He wanted his disciples to look at his hands and feet and to touch him so that they would know that he was a real person, not a ghost.

Translate this reassurance in a natural way in your language. You should also connect it to 24:39a in a natural way. Some other ways to do this in English are:

and see that it’s really me (God’s Word)
-or-
so that you will believe that it is truly I
-or-
and know that I myself am here

24:39c

Touch Me and see: The clause Touch Me and see indicates here that Jesus wanted his disciples to feel him so that they could be sure that he was a living person. Then they would know that he had a real body. He was not a ghost/spirit. Some other ways to translate this clause are:

Touch me and find out for yourselves (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
Feel me so that you will be sure/satisfied
-or-
Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
Feel me, and you will know (Good News Translation)

24:39d–e

for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have: In Greek 24:39d begins with a word that is often translated as “because.” The Berean Standard Bible translates this word as for. Here it introduces an explanation for 24:39c. Jesus explained why he wanted his disciples to touch him. He wanted them to know that he was not a spirit. Jesus contrasted himself with a ghost/spirit. A spirit does not have real flesh and bones that a human can touch/feel, but Jesus had them. When the disciples touched him, they would feel his flesh and bones.

Some other ways to translate the explanation in English are:

for a ghost doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you can see I have (Good News Translation)
-or-
because a ghost has no skin or bones, but you can see that I have them

Translate this explanation in a clear way in your language. See the General Comment on 24:39a–e below for a suggestion about how to reorder parts of this verse.

for a spirit does not have flesh and bones: The phrase flesh and bones is another way to refer to a real physical body. Languages have different ways to refer to this, and you may use a natural expression in your language. Some other ways to translate it in English are:

a ghost does not have a living body (New Century Version)
-or-
ghosts don’t have bodies (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
a ghost does not have real skin or bones

as you see I have: The clause as you see I have contrasts Jesus with ghosts/spirits. The disciples could see that Jesus had a body with flesh and bones. Another way to translate this contrast is:

but you can see that I do have a real body

General Comment on 24:39a–e

In some languages it is more natural to change the order of some clauses in this verse. For example:

39bIt is I myself! 39aLook at my hands and my feet, 39cand touch me. 39eYou can see that I have real flesh and bones, 39dnot like a spirit/ghost!

Translate what Jesus said in this verse in a natural order in your language.

© 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.