12:5a

In Greek this verse begins with the simple connector that is often translated as “and.” The story implies that the events of this verse happened sometime after the events of 12:4. The servant in 12:4 probably returned to his owner, and then the owner sent another servant.

He sent still another: The clause He sent still another indicates that the owner again sent another servant to bring his share of the harvest to him. He had already sent more than one of his servants. The English word still or “yet” emphasizes this.

Here is another way to translate this:

So the owner sent a servant a third time

and this one they killed: In Greek the word order emphasizes this particular servant. The Berean Standard Bible and Revised Standard Version express this emphasis by putting the phrase “this one” first in the clause. The normal order in English would be, “and they killed him,” as in the Contemporary English Version. Consider how to emphasize this servant in a natural way in your language.

12:5b

He sent many others: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as He sent many others is literally “and many others.” The Berean Standard Bible has supplied the words He sent to make the meaning clear. The owner sent many more of his servants to the grape farmers to try to get his share of the grape harvest. The New Revised Standard Version translates this as:

And so it was with many others

12:5c

some they beat and others they killed: In this part of the verse the normal word order in English would be, “They beat some and killed others,” as in the Contemporary English Version. The Berean Standard Bible has followed the Greek word order here. Use a natural order in your language.

beat: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as beat means to strike, whip, or beat repeatedly. Refer to how you translated this same word in 12:3a.

© 2008 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.