11:15

The saying in this verse also occurs in Mark 4:9, Mark 4:23, Luke 8:8, Luke 14:35. You should translate all these passages in the same way.

He who has ears, let him hear: These words are a saying that Jesus used to command or urge the crowd to carefully think about the words that they had just heard. This saying assumes that everyone in the crowd had ears and were able to hear. So it is addressed to all the people who were listening to Jesus.

Here are some other ways to translate this saying:

• Use “they” or “you” instead of he. For example:

⌊All⌋ those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
-or-

⌊All of⌋ you who have ears to hear, hear/listen.

• Use a different type of clause. In some languages it may be more natural to use an “if” clause or a reason clause. For example:

If/Since you have ears that can hear, then pay attention.

• Translate the saying without including the word ears. For example:

You people who can hear me, listen! (New Century Version)

let him hear: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as let him hear is a command in the third person. It does not express permission.

Here is one way to make this more clear:

Anyone who has ears should listen! (New Jerusalem Bible)

In some languages, it may be necessary to say what the listener should be listening to. For example:

let him listen ⌊to me⌋

-or-

let him listen ⌊to what I say⌋

© 2023 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.