3:17a
James son of Zebedee and his brother John: James is mentioned first, so he was probably the older of the two brothers. James, John, and Zebedee were previously mentioned in 1:19–20.
son of Zebedee: Zebedee was the name of the father of both James and John.
In languages where there is no single word for son, many translators have used a more general expression, such as “child.”
3:17b
whom He named Boanerges: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as whom He named refers to Jesus’ description of the character of James and John. The Greek is almost identical to the clause “to whom he gave the name” in 3:16b. Unlike the name “Peter,” which is used throughout the New Testament, the term Boanerges is not referred to anywhere else in the New Testament.
The Contemporary English Version has another way to translate this:
Jesus called them Boanerges (Contemporary English Version)
Boanerges: Boanerges was a word in the language that Jesus and his disciples spoke. You should write this word according to the sounds of your language. (The first part of the name Boanerges is clearly Aramaic and means “sons of,” but the last part could refer to the Aramaic word for “crowd/commotion” or “anger.” Another possibility is that the last part refers to a similar word in Arabic which means “Thunder”. Regardless of the origin, Mark obviously understood this to mean “Sons of Thunder.”)
meaning “Sons of Thunder”: The idiom Sons of refers to one of the characteristics of James and John. Jesus was saying that they were “Thunder-like.” Scholars are not certain in what way James and John were like thunder.
Here are some other ways to translate this:
this means “Sons of Thunder”
-or-
which means “Men of Thunder” (Good News Bible)
-or-
this means that they were like thunder
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