12:16

warning them: The pronoun them probably refers to the people whom Jesus healed. It does not refer to everyone who followed him. In 8:4a and 9:30b, Jesus also commanded people whom he healed not to tell anyone what had happened.

not to make Him known: This phrase refers:

(a) generally to spreading the news of his activities. Jesus did not want the people whom he healed to talk about his miracles and so make him famous. He did not want to encourage the Pharisees to try to kill him before it was time.

(b) specifically to spreading the news of his identity. The Jews were expecting a Messiah who would deliver them from Rome. They did not yet understand what type of Messiah he really was. Jesus did not want them to spread false information.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

not to tell others about him (Good News Translation)
-or-
not to tell anyone what he had done

-or-

not to tell who he was (New International Version)

In some languages, it may be natural to translate this phrase as direct speech. For example:

“Do not tell anyone about me!”

© 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.