3:32a
and a crowd was sitting around Him: This clause indicates that many people were sitting around Jesus. They had been listening to his teaching. In some languages it may be necessary to make that explicit. For example:
Many people were sitting around him listening to his teaching
around: The word around indicates that people surrounded Jesus on many sides.
3:32b
Look: In Greek this part of the verse begins with a word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Look. It indicates that the people wanted Jesus to stop teaching and listen to what they intended to tell him.
Here is another way to translate this:
Listen!
Some translations do not translate this word because it is not common English style for this context. Consider whether there is a similar expression in your language that would be natural to say to a teacher in a context like this.
He was told: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as He was told introduces what the people said to Jesus. In some languages an indirect quote may be more natural here. See the General Comment on 3:32b–d for examples.
This is a passive clause. The people in the crowd sitting around Jesus were the ones who told him the message. Here are some ways to translate it:
• Use a passive verb. For example:
he was told by people in the crowd
• Use an active verb. For example:
people in the crowd told him
Your mother and brothers are outside: There is a textual issue in this part of the verse:
(1) Some Greek manuscripts have Your mother and brothers. These manuscripts do not mention sisters. For example, the Revised Standard Version says:
Your mother and your brothers are outside (Revised Standard Version)
(New International Version, Berean Standard Bible, Revised Standard Version, God’s Word, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English, New American Standard Bible, NET Bible, New Century Version, Revised English Bible, King James Version)
(2) Some Greek manuscripts have Your mother and your brothers and your sisters. For example, the New Revised Standard Version says:
Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside (New Revised Standard Version)
(Good News Bible, Contemporary English Version, New Jerusalem Bible, New Living Translation, 1996 edition, New Revised Standard Version).
It is recommended that you follow option (1), as do the majority of English versions, because it has the best manuscript support.
However, if the national language version follows option (2), you may want to consider following it instead. (The UBS4 (page 130) does follow option (2) but gives it a C rating, indicating considerable doubt.)
Your: The pronoun Your refers to Jesus.
mother and brothers: This is the same phrase as in 3:31a. Translate it here in the same way you did there.
outside: The word outside refers to outside the house where Jesus was. See how you translated this in 3:31b.
3:32d
asking for You: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as asking for You indicates here that Jesus’ family wanted him to come outside of the house and talk with them. In some languages an expression like asking for You might wrongly not clearly communicate their request to see him.
Here are some other ways to express the meaning:
they want you (Good News Bible)
-or-
and want to see you (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
asking for you (Revised Standard Version)
General Comment on 3:32b–d
The Berean Standard Bible uses a direct quote for 3:32. In some languages it may be more natural to use indirect speech here. If this is true in your language, you could say:
and they told him that his mother and brothers were outside looking for him
-or-
word was brought that his mother and brothers were outside asking for him (Revised English Bible)
© 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.