Why then did you go out?: then is represented in Good News Translation by “Tell me.” In Greek this conjunction serves to make a transition and to draw a contrast. It can also be rendered “So, then, why…?” or “So I ask you, what…?” or “If not (for these reasons), then why did…?”

To see a prophet? may need the full question form: “Did you come out to see a prophet?” In Greek the form of this question differs from the questions in verses 7 and 8, which expect a negative reply. Here Jesus expects the people to reply “Yes, we came out to see a prophet.” To the questions of verses 7-8 he would expect the reply “No, we did not come out to see a blade of grass … a man dressed in expensive clothes.” As with the earlier questions, so here also a shift may be made to a statement: “You came out to see a prophet” or “Instead you came out….”

There are several ways the meaning of these questions can be expressed. For example, one can say “You went out to see a prophet, didn’t you?” or “So I ask you, why did you go out? It was to see a prophet, wasn’t it?”

For comments on prophet, see 1.22.

Yes, I tell you is similar in form to the expression used in 5.18 and 26, except that here Yes substitutes for “truly.” Once again, translation may necessitate a fuller expression: “I will tell you what you went out to see. You went out to see a prophet. Yes, you went out to see someone who is more than a prophet.”

As can be seen from these examples, how this last sentence is rendered depends on how the rhetorical questions of this and the previous verse were handled. It should always flow well from those questions. Another rendering is “So, I ask you, why did you go out into the desert? It was to see a prophet. But I tell you that you saw much more than just a prophet.”

More than a prophet, in addition to the ways it is expressed in the examples above, can also be “someone much greater than a prophet” or “someone who is more than an ordinary prophet.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .