The next morning (Phillips “when morning came”) is literally “when day came.” It is doubtful if the Roman officials would have acted as early as the New English Bible (“when daylight came”) and the Jerusalem Bible (“when it was daylight”) intimate. Roman authorities is the same word translated Roman officials in verse 20.

The word translated police officers appears in the New Testament only here and in verse 38. Each of the two Roman officials in a colony (see v. 20) had a special attendant. In Latin these attendants were called lictors, and this is the rendering in the translation by Moffatt. The average reader will, however, not understand this technical Latin term, and it is best to do either as the Good News Translation has done or to follow the New English Bible (“their officers”) or Barclay (“their attendants”).

The sequence of orders in verse 35 is not easy to express in some languages. Note first the Roman authorities give an order to the police officers, and the police officers are in turn directed to order the jailer to let the men go. In languages in which orders must be expressed in direct discourse, one may translate: “The next morning the Roman authorities said to the police officers, Go and tell the jailer, Let those men go.” In some languages let those men go may be rendered as “release those men from prison” or “untie those men.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .