4:47a

When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee: Some people told this man that Jesus had arrived in Galilee. We do not know how he heard that Jesus had come there. In some languages it may be more natural to use direct speech. For example:

someone told him, “Jesus came from Judea back to Galilee.”

Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee: Galilee refers to a province or area, as does Judea. Jesus had come from Judea, the province where Jerusalem was, and gone to his home province of Galilee.

4:47b

he went: This clause means “the royal official went to Jesus.” For example:

he went to Jesus (New Century Version)

and begged Him to come down and heal his son: Capernaum was on lower ground than Cana, so traveling there involved going down. The important point is that the official wanted Jesus to go to Capernaum to heal his son. This is implied information. You can supply this information to make the story easier to understand. For example:

asked him to go to Capernaum and heal his son (Good News Translation)

4:47c

In Greek this clause begins with a word that is usually translated as “for” or “because.” It introduces the reason why the official begged Jesus to heal his son. Connect the events in a natural way in your language.

who was about to die: The phrase about to die means that the son was so ill that he would probably die soon. Here are other ways to translate this clause:

his son was almost dead (New Century Version)
-or-
he was already dying
-or-
who was close to death (New International Version)

General Comment on 4:47b

The verb “begged” here introduces an indirect quotation. In some languages it is more natural to use direct speech. For example:

So the official went to Jesus and said to him, “Please come to Capernaum and heal my son. He is almost dead.”

© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.