And sending away the crowds: Good News Translation identifies the subject of the participle sending and simultaneously shifts to a finite verb: “Then Jesus sent the people away.” For Good News Bible this is important, since it makes verse 39 into a separate paragraph. In place of Good News Translation‘s “sent … away,” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “sent home,” which is certainly the contextual meaning. In many languages it will not only be helpful but necessary to translate as Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has done, for the sake of avoiding a rendering which sounds harsh; for example, translators can say “Then Jesus told the crowds to go home (or, return to their homes).” It can also be in direct speech: “Then Jesus said to the crowds, ‘You should go home.’ ”

Got into the boat can begin a new sentence, as in “Then he got into the boat.” However, in many languages it can just as naturally be connected to the previous phrase: “After Jesus told the crowds to return to their homes, he got into the boat.”

He got into the boat and went: in other contexts this may mean that Jesus and his disciples got into the boat and left, since Matthew occasionally will use such a construction in this manner. However, as 16.5 attests, Jesus gets into the boat this time without his disciples.

Neither Revised Standard Version nor Good News Translation indicate the textual problem regarding the name Magadan. Although TC-GNT favors this name, it acknowledges that “not only the site, but even the existence of such a place-name is uncertain.” The parallel in Mark (8.10) has “the district of Dalmanutha,” which TC-GNT further points out is “an equally unknown site and name.” Some Greek manuscripts have substituted the well-known “Magdala,” a Semitic word meaning “tower,” for Magadan; most translations prefer Magadan.

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 .