The sentence And to the centurion Jesus said is in a word order not possible in many languages. It serves to show that Jesus is now addressing the centurion and no longer the disciples around him. This may be shown clearly in sentences such as “Then Jesus turned to the Roman officer and said” or “Then Jesus spoke to the centurion. He said.”
Go is translated “Go home” by Good News Translation. Several translations render with the same meaning as Good News Bible (New English Bible, New American Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), though others are less specific: “Go back, then…” (New Jerusalem Bible).
Be it done for you as you have believed: the Greek particle rendered as may either be comparative or causative. Revised Standard Version is ambiguous, but New English Bible (“because of your faith”) and New American Bible (“because you trusted”) are explicitly causative. An American Translation apparently believes the particle to be comparative: “you shall find it just as you believe!” The context seems to favor the causative force, and in some languages it may be necessary to be more explicit: “God will heal your servant because you believed that he would heal him” or “You believed that God would heal your servant, and so he will do it for you.”
Be it done for you is another passive construction, but at the same time it expresses an imperative. If an agent has to be supplied, it should be “God,” as in “May God do what you asked for.” When combined with the causative as that we discussed above, the translation can be “Because you have believed God could heal your servant, may he do so” or “God will heal your servant, as I have asked, because you believed he would.”
The servant is identified by Good News Translation as “the officer’s servant.” Servant is the same noun used in verse 6.
At that very moment is literally “in that hour.” But “hour” is here used idiomatically, and several translations have “moment” (Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible). Matthew elsewhere employs this expression in 10.19; 18.1; 26.55; Mark (13.11) and Luke (7.21) use it but once each.
Was healed is another passive that may need to be rendered as an active. It can be “And the servant got better at that very moment.” It is also possible to have an agent, God, as in “And God healed that servant right then.”
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 .