15:35
And: In Greek, 15:35 begins with a common conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as And. Here it introduces what Jesus did next.
Here are some other ways to begin this verse:
Then (New Revised Standard Version)
-or-
After that
The New International Version and some other English versions do not translate this word. In some languages, it will not be necessary to translate this word either.
He instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as instructed also means “gave orders” or “commanded.” It indicates that Jesus gave instructions to the large crowd. Your translation of the word instructed should not imply that Jesus was speaking harshly to the people.
Here are some other ways to translate this clause:
Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground (New Living Translation (2004))
In some languages it may be more natural to use a causative expression for this phrase. For example:
caused the people to sit down
to sit down: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as sit down is literally to “recline.” To recline is to sit and then lean over on the left elbow with legs outstretched to the right. This was the normal Jewish position for eating.
You may want to use the usual position that people use when they eat in your culture. This is what most English versions do.
on the ground: Jesus told the people to sit on the ground because he was about to give them food. They were in the wilderness, so they had to sit on the ground.
In some languages it may be unnecessary to specify “on the ground,” since it may be clear from the context. If that is true in your language, you may leave this phrase implicit. For example:
He told the people to sit down
© 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.