4:25a
The large crowds that followed Him came from Galilee: The phrase large crowds indicates a very great number of people. The word crowds is plural because many people came from Galilee, many others came from Decapolis, many others came from Jerusalem, and so forth.
Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:
Very many people
-or-
Large numbers of people
that followed Him: Here the phrase followed Him probably means “went with Jesus.” In other contexts, it can mean “became a disciple of Jesus.” Some people in the crowd may have followed Jesus for the purpose of being his disciples, but others followed him only to see his miracles. Here you should translate followed in a literal way. For example:
went with him
-or-
accompanied him
-or-
followed him wherever he went (New Living Translation (2004))
4:25b
the Decapolis: The word Decapolis means “the ten cities.” It refers to a region where there was a group of ten cities that had special status under Roman law.
Here are some other ways to translate this word:
• Transliterate the term as the Berean Standard Bible and some other versions do. For example:
the Decapolis
-or-
Dekapolisi
• Translate the meaning of the term. For example:
the Ten Towns (Good News Translation)
-or-
the Ten Cities (God’s Word)
Jerusalem, Judea: The names Jerusalem and Judea are mentioned together, but Jerusalem is a city and Judea is a district. Jerusalem was the main city in Judea. You may want to make it clear that Jerusalem was in Judea. For example:
Jerusalem and ⌊other areas of the district of⌋ Judea
4:25c
and beyond the Jordan: The phrase beyond the Jordan refers to land on the east side of the Jordan River. Jerusalem was on the west side of the Jordan River. Other land was referred to as land beyond, across, or on the other side of the Jordan River.
Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:
the land across the Jordan River (New Century Version)
-or-
from east of the Jordan River (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
the land on the other side of the Jordan River
© 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.