When can also be translated “after”: “After Joseph woke up….”

Woke translates a Greek verb which is also found with this same meaning in the Septuagint (Gen 28.16; Judges 16.14). Here it is followed by the phrase from sleep. In the structure of Good News Translation, however, it is not explicitly mentioned, since this information is clearly implicit in the text and more natural in English without it. The same is true in many other languages. Translators must ask themselves whether they would say “Wake up” or “Wake up from sleep,” and then use the appropriate phrase.

He took his wife (Good News Translation “he married Mary”) represents the same expression discussed in verse 20, and translators should translate the phrase here in a way similar to what they did there: “He married Mary,” or “He took Mary to be his wife,” or “He received her as his wife.”

For the angel of the Lord, see comments on verse 20.

Notice that Good News Translation has reversed the order of the last two phrases in this verse. This is perhaps more natural in English, and other translators should do what is natural in their languages. A further problem is that in some translations it sounds as if he married Mary immediately after waking up. So it may be necessary to have sentences such as these: “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do when he said he should marry Mary” or “Joseph woke up. After that, he married Mary, because that was what the angel of the Lord had commanded him to do.”

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 .