1:41a
Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man: The phrase Moved with compassion gives the reason for Jesus’ action in this sentence. Jesus touched the man because he felt much compassion for the man.
Here are some other ways to show the connection between Jesus’ compassion and his action:
Jesus was filled with pity, and reached out and touched him. (Good News Bible)
-or-
Jesus felt sorry for the man. So he put his hand on him… (Contemporary English Version)
Moved with compassion:
There is a textual issue in this verse: (1) Most manuscripts have a Greek word that means “to be moved with pity.” (2) Some other manuscripts have a different word that means “angry.” It is recommended that you follow option (1), along with most versions.
The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates with the idiom Moved with compassion indicates that Jesus felt much pity for the man with leprosy.
Here are some other ways to translate Moved with compassion:
Moved with pity (New Living Translation, 1996 edition)
-or-
Jesus cared greatly about him
-or-
Jesus thought, “I am deeply concerned for this man.”
Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man: The phrase reached out His hand emphasizes the action touched. It showed amazing compassion for a person to touch someone with leprosy.
In some languages it may sound unnatural to say that Jesus “reached out his hand” because this action is implied by the phrase touched the man. If this is true in your language, use a natural way to express the action in your language. For example:
reached out and touched him (Good News Bible)
1:41b
I am willing: The phrase I am willing means here, “I am willing to do as you ask” or “I do want to heal you.”
He said: In Greek the phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as He said occurs at the beginning of 1:41b. The Berean Standard Bible has placed it after “I am willing.” Place this phrase where it is natural in your language.
Be clean!: The command Be clean! indicates here that Jesus was healing the man and that he was also making him ritually pure. In some languages it may not be natural to use a command to express this idea. It may be necessary to indicate that Jesus himself was doing these actions. For example:
You are now pure. I heal you.
-or-
I take away your leprosy and make you ritually clean.
-or-
Now you are well. (Contemporary English Version)
If you have healers in your culture, they may use an expression to pronounce someone well. Consider whether an expression like that would be appropriate for Jesus to say here.
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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
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