Acts 14:23

14:23 When they had appointed elders ¹  for them in the various churches, ²  with prayer and fasting ³  they entrusted them to the protection ⁴  of the Lord in whom they had believed.

Acts 16:34

16:34 The jailer ⁵  brought them into his house and set food ⁶  before them, and he rejoiced greatly ⁷  that he had come to believe ⁸  in God, together with his entire household. ⁹ 

[14:23]  ¹ sn Appointed elders. See Acts 20:17.

[14:23]  ² tn The preposition κατά (kata) is used here in a distributive sense; see BDAG 512 s.v. κατά B.1.d.

[14:23]  ³ tn Literally with a finite verb (προσευξάμενοι, proseuxamenoi) rather than a noun, “praying with fasting,” but the combination “prayer and fasting” is so familiar in English that it is preferable to use it here.

[14:23]  ⁴ tn BDAG 772 s.v. παρατίθημι 3.b has “entrust someone to the care or protection of someone” for this phrase. The reference to persecution or suffering in the context (v. 22) suggests “protection” is a better translation here. This looks at God’s ultimate care for the church.

[16:34]  ⁵ tn Grk “He”; the referent (the jailer) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:34]  ⁶ tn Grk “placed [food] on the table” (a figurative expression). Since the actual word for food is not specified, it would also be possible to translate “set a meal before them,” but since this is taking place in the middle of the night, the preparations necessary for a full meal would probably not have been made. More likely Paul and Silas were given whatever was on hand that needed little or no preparation.

[16:34]  ⁷ tn Or “he was overjoyed.”

[16:34]  ⁸ tn The translation “come to believe” reflects more of the resultative nuance of the perfect tense here.

[16:34]  ⁹ tn The phrase “together with his entire household” is placed at the end of the English sentence so that it refers to both the rejoicing and the belief. A formal equivalence translation would have “and he rejoiced greatly with his entire household that he had come to believe in God,” but the reference to the entire household being baptized in v. 33 presumes that all in the household believed.