The And at the beginning of the verse simply indicates the narrative is continuing. Translators can drop it or render it with whatever word or phrase in their language is natural in the paragraph, possibly “Then.”

In the fourth watch of the night reflects the Roman custom of dividing the time between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M. into four equal periods of three hours each. Each one of these time periods was called a watch. The Jews and the Greeks, on the other hand, divided the night into three watches. Barclay translates “About three o’clock in the morning,” and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch is less specific still: “Toward morning.” There are many ways that languages refer to the time indicated by in the fourth watch of the night. Besides an expression like that of Good News Translation, translators can have “just before dawn” or “very early in the morning (before dawn).”

In place of he came to them, it may be advisable to substitute nouns (“Jesus came to his disciples”), since in the Greek text Jesus was last mentioned by name in verse 16.

Came may better be rendered “went.”

Walking on the sea (so most translations) is rendered “walking on the lake” by Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, and Barclay. Walking represents the normal Greek word for “walk,” and on the sea means specifically “on the surface of the water,” thus indicating a miraculous event; for example, “walking over the lake” (New English Bible). The phrase in English, walking on the sea in both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, is open to being interpreted that the disciples were walking on the sea, not Jesus. This is clearly wrong. Translators can make clear who is walking by using two sentences, as in “Jesus went (or, came) to his disciples. He was walking on the water.” Another possibility is “Jesus walked over the water (and went) to his disciples.”

As we discussed in connection with the section heading above, the translation must not give the impression Jesus was wading in the water. The passage says clearly that he was walking “on top of the water” or “on the surface of the sea.”

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 .