11:13

For: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as For indicates that 11:13 explains something. Here this conjunction introduces more details about John and the kingdom.

Jesus explained that John was the turning point between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament period was a time of prophecy about the Messiah and his kingdom. The New Testament period was the time when these prophecies were fulfilled.

Here is another way to translate this conjunction:

I say this ⌊because⌋

Some English versions do not translate this conjunction. In some languages, it may not be necessary to translate this conjunction either.

all the Prophets and the Law: This phrase refers to the books of the prophets and the five books of Moses in the Old Testament. These two groups of books represent all the Old Testament.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

All the Books of the Prophets and the Law of Moses (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
all ⌊the books of⌋ the prophets and ⌊all the books of⌋ the law ⌊of Moses⌋

Normally, Jews said “the Law and the Prophets.” Here Matthew reversed the normal order. He perhaps did this to focus on the function of prophecy in the Old Testament.

prophesied: The verb prophesied means “spoke a message on behalf of God.” The Old Testament Scriptures spoke about many future things. Some of those prophecies were about the coming Messiah and his kingdom. In the context of 11:11–13, the topic is the kingdom of God. So here, Jesus was referring to prophesies about the kingdom. In some languages, it will be natural to make this explicit. For example:

spoke about the Kingdom (Good News Translation)
-or-
told about what would happen ⌊regarding the kingdom of God⌋

The word prophesy also occurs in 7:22b.

until John: The phrase until John refers to John’s coming or time on earth. The coming of John marked the end of the Old Testament period and the beginning of the time of the kingdom. The period of the prophets and their prophecies about the kingdom was from Moses to John. When John came, these prophecies started to be fulfilled.

In many languages, it will be necessary to make some of this information explicit. For example:

Until the time of John all the prophets and the Law of Moses spoke about the Kingdom (Good News Translation)
-or-
All the Prophets and the Law prophesied about the kingdom until John came. ⌊When he arrived, he began to fulfill what they had said.⌋

-or-

Before John came, all the Prophets and the Law prophesied about the kingdom. ⌊When he arrived, those prophecies started to become true.⌋

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