Paragraph 20:24–28

20:24a

When the ten heard about this: Somehow, the other ten disciples heard/learned that James’ and John’s mother had asked Jesus to give them places of special honor. The text does not indicate who told them, or how they heard about it.

Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

When the ten heard it (English Standard Version)
-or-
When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked (New Living Translation (2004))

the ten: This phrase refers to the other ten disciples. In some languages, it may be natural to make this explicit. For example:

the other ten disciples (Good News Translation)

20:24b

they were indignant: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as indignant means “angry.” Matthew uses it in two other places to describe inappropriate anger (21:15 and 26:8). The other disciples were upset that James and John were trying to get ahead of them. They were angry because they were jealous.

Here are some other ways to translate this verb:

became angry (Good News Translation)

-or-

very upset/annoyed

© 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.