Translation commentary on Luke 21:16 – 21:17

Exegesis:

paradothēsesthe de kai hupo goneōn ‘you will also be delivered up by (your) parents,’ i.e. apart from being persecuted by the opponents just mentioned; for paradidōmi cf. on v. 12.

kai thanatōsousin ex humōn ‘and they will put to death (some) of you.’ The subject is either the parents etc. named in the preceding clause (which would require the rendering, ‘they will cause to be put to death’), or those to whom the disciples will be turned over, i.e. the persecuting authorities. The latter is preferable. thanatoō. For ex humōn cf. on ex autōn in 11.49.

(V. 17) kai esesthe misoumenoi ‘and you will be hated,’ periphrasis for the future passive.

dia to onoma mou ‘because of my name,’ ‘on account of my name,’ equivalent to heneken tou onomatos mou, cf. on v. 12.

Translation:

The recipients of delivered up may have to be mentioned, cf. e.g. ‘even parents … will hand you over to the court-of-justice’ (Sranan Tongo).

Parents, see on 2.27.

And (thrice) here indicates alternatives; hence ‘or’ may be better (cf. Balinese).

For brothers and kinsmen see on 14.12.

If some of you they will put to death is translated literally, ‘they’ will be taken as a reference to the ‘parents,’ etc., not to the persecuting authorities (as preferred in Exegesis). To avoid this misunderstanding some versions shift to a passive construction, suggesting indefinite agents that as such must be different from the definitely named ‘parents,’ etc.; where this is apt to be still rather ambiguous one may render “put to death” by a technical term that implies persecuting authorities as its agents, e.g. ‘sentence to death,’ cf. also, “send to their death” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation), or one may explicitly refer to the agents, replacing “they” by ‘the judges/authorities/those-in-power.’

(V. 17) For hated see on 1.71.

All refers to people in general.

Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.

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