SIL Translator’s Notes on Matthew 9:30

9:30a

And their eyes were opened: This clause is an idiom. It means that the two men’s eyes were healed, and they were able to see. It does not mean that their eyes had been closed, and now they were open.

Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

They were able to see (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
Then the men were able to see. (New Century Version)

The men were immediately healed when Jesus spoke the words of 9:29. The New International Version indicates that with a semi-colon (;) at the end of 9:29, and the Good News Translation indicates that with a long dash (—). If people in your area will not think that the healing was immediate, you may want to use punctuation, grammar, or another way to indicate so. Here are some examples:

and ⌊immediately⌋ they could see
-or-
and ⌊at the very moment⌋ ⌊he said that,⌋ they could see

9:30b

warned them sternly: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as warned them sternly is a strong warning, but it is not an angry warning.

Here are some other ways to translate this verb:

strongly cautioned them
-or-
insisted thoroughly
-or-
severely commanded/ordered
-or-
said emphatically

See that: In this context, the Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as See that is a warning that means “Be careful” or “Do not” It is a word of warning not to do something. Here it does not mean “look” at something.

Here are some other ways to translate this verb:

Don’t tell (Good News Translation)
-or-
Don’t let (Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)

no one finds out about this: This clause means that the two men should not tell anyone that Jesus had healed them.

Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

Let no one know about this/that
-or-
do not tell that/this to anyone

-or-

do not tell anyone ⌊that I healed you

General Comment on 9:30b

In some languages, it may be more natural to translate 9:30b as indirect speech. For example:

Jesus strongly warned them not to tell anyone what had happened.

© 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.

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