Section 4:31–37
Jesus cast out an evil spirit
In Nazareth, people did not believe that Jesus was sent by God. In this section, Jesus went back to Capernaum (4:23d). Apparently, the people in Capernaum accepted him. There he commanded a demon to come out of a man. The people were amazed at both the authority and the power with which Jesus spoke.
Some other possible headings for this section are:
Jesus Forces an Evil Spirit out of a Man (God’s Word)
-or-
Jesus exorcises an evil spirit
There is a parallel passage for this section in Mark 1:21–28.
Paragraph 4:31–32
4:31a
Then: This verse begins with a Greek conjunction that is often translated as “and.” Some English versions, such as the English Standard Version, translate it that way. However, since this verse is the beginning of a new story, other versions, like the Berean Standard Bible, translate this conjunction with a time word. In some languages, it will also be natural to begin this paragraph with a time word or phrase. For example:
After that
-or-
One day
He went down to Capernaum: Capernaum is the name of a town. Jesus went down from the town of Nazareth (a higher place) to Capernaum (a lower place). Capernaum was about 580 meters lower in elevation than Nazareth was. It was nearly thirty kilometers away.
In some languages, it is important to say whether people go up or down when they travel. In other languages, this would be unusual and might be confusing. If it is confusing in your language, you should not translate “down.” For example:
Jesus went to Capernaum
-or-
Jesus traveled to Capernaum
a town in Galilee: Capernaum was a town in the province of Galilee. It was on or near the northwest shore of Lake Galilee.
Since Nazareth was also a town in Galilee, it may be necessary to translate this as:
⌊another⌋ town in Galilee
4:31b
and on the Sabbath He began to teach the people: On one particular Sabbath day, Jesus went to the synagogue in Capernaum and began to teach there. While he was teaching, the incident in 4:33–37 happened.
the Sabbath:
The Sabbath day was the name of the seventh and last day of the week for the Jews. See the note on Sabbath at 4:16b for a more complete description.
He began to teach the people: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as began to teach is literally “he was teaching” (as in the Revised Standard Version). It can also be translated as “taught.” For example:
he taught the people (Good News Translation)
In some languages, it may be necessary to say explicitly what Jesus taught the people. For example:
taught ⌊God’s word to⌋ the people
the people: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the people is literally “them.” It refers to the people of Capernaum who were in the synagogue that Sabbath day.
© 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.