Finding obviously does not indicate the man found it lying about somewhere, but rather “he found a very valuable one for sale.”

One pearl of great value is translated “one that is unusually fine” by Good News Translation. New English Bible has “one of very special value,” New Jerusalem Bible “one of great value,” New American Bible “one really valuable pearl.”

Sold translates a Greek perfect tense, but there is some suspicion among grammarians that the form is here equivalent to the aorist, since it is used in parallel with an aorist tense and is itself not known to possess an aorist form. For effect Good News Translation utilizes the present “sells.”

Went and sold all that he had and bought it may be rendered “went and sold everything he owned so he could buy that pearl.”

For stylistic reasons Good News Translation translates it of the Greek text as “that pearl.”

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 .