7:9

This verse has two parallel lines that are similar in meaning:

9a
at twilight, as the day was fading

9b
into the dark of night.

7:9a–b

at twilight, as the day was fading into the dark of the night: This verse gives the time setting of the events in this story. The phrases that the Berean Standard Bible translates as at twilight, as the day was fading refer to evening/dusk. The parallel term into the dark of the night probably refers to when it is already dark. These terms function together to describe a single period of time. This can be expressed as:

in the evening after it was dark (Good News Translation)
-or-
It was late in the evening, sometime after dark (Contemporary English Version)

Try to give this information in a way that is natural in your language. (See the General Comment that follows.)

General Comment on 7:6–9

In some languages, the whole setting is normally described at the beginning of a story. If that is true in your language, you have a number of options:

• Instead of making explicit a general word like “once” or “one day” in 7:6, you can make the time explicit from the context of 7:9. For example:

One night, when I was looking out…

Verse 9 can then add other details, such as “it was already dark.” This solution would avoid reordering verses, but it may be awkward in some languages.

• Reorder the verses by putting the content of verse 9 before verse 6. For example:

9 One evening, as the day was fading, as the dark of night set in, 6 I was at the window…

The verse numbering would then read “6–9.” In general, renumbering involving this many verses is not recommended, but if it is acceptable to your readers, this may provide the most natural solution.

• Translate verse 8 so that 8b precedes 8a and reword 8a as a time phrase. For example:

He was walking deliberately toward the corner where a woman who committed adultery lived. As he approached her house…

See the second meaning line in the Display for 7:8a–b (combined/reordered). This solution avoids verse renumbering.

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