The indefinite pronoun subject of the verb heard has been made definite, the crowd. Heard these words may be rendered in some languages as “heard what Demetrius had said.”

The term translated furious combines in this context components of anger as well as excitement. In some languages this is actually translated “became excited and very angry.”

The form of the shout raised by the Ephesians was the usual way of cheering: Great is Artemis of Ephesus! The grammatical form of this shout by the Ephesians is in some languages rendered as “Artemis of Ephesus is very great indeed.” In other instances there are idiomatic expressions equivalent to great which may literally mean “long live” or “high above all else” but which are in reality only idiomatic ways of shouting praise to an important personage or a god.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .