Although verses 37-41 are without parallel in the discourses of either Mark or Luke, Luke includes this material earlier (17.26-27, 34-35), combining it with the illustration of Lot’s experience in Sodom (17.28-29).

Good News Translation‘s restructuring of verse 37 intimates that the contrast is between what happened to the people of Noah’s day and what will happen to the people who are on earth when the Son of Man comes. Such an interpretation finds support in verse 39: “… the flood came and swept them all away.” However, it seems more likely that the intention of the saying is to indicate that the affairs of daily life (eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage) continued up to the moment that Noah entered the boat. The message is then that judgment falls, not because people are engaged in particularly evil activities, but rather because they conduct the normal affairs of life without consideration of the approaching divine judgment. Accordingly, New English Bible translates “As things were in Noah’s day, so will they be…”; Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “When the Son of Man comes, it will be as it was during the time of Noah. 38 At that time before the great flood came they ate and drank and married as usual….” Barclay apparently allows for either or both interpretations: “What happened in the time of Noah will happen again at the coming of the Son of Man.”

For the coming of the Son of man, see verse 27 and comments.

Complete understanding of verse 38 requires some knowledge of the Old Testament story of Noah, his ark, and the flood. But much of this information cannot be put into the translation itself and can only appear in a short footnote or the Glossary. What translators can do in the text, if necessary, is render the flood as “the time when God covered the whole world with water” or “the time when the whole world was flooded,” and render the ark as “the boat Noah built” or “the boat that God told Noah to build so he could escape the flood.” But this was a boat big enough to carry many animals as well as several people, so translators should use a term that is appropriate.

The pronoun they is usually translated as “people” (Good News Translation).

Translators should be careful not to render the activities eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage so that readers think that was what people were doing at the actual moment of the flood, but rather that people continued with these kinds of activities as usual. See the Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch example in the second paragraph of this discussion.

For marrying and giving in marriage, see discussion at 22.30.

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 .