Acts 21:31-33

21:31 While they were trying ¹  to kill him, a report ²  was sent up ³  to the commanding officer ⁴  of the cohort ⁵  that all Jerusalem was in confusion. ⁶  21:32 He ⁷  immediately took ⁸  soldiers and centurions ⁹  and ran down to the crowd. ¹⁰  When they saw ¹¹  the commanding officer ¹²  and the soldiers, they stopped beating ¹³  Paul. 21:33 Then the commanding officer ¹⁴  came up and arrested ¹⁵  him and ordered him to be tied up with two chains; ¹⁶  he ¹⁷  then asked who he was and what ¹⁸  he had done.

[21:31]  ¹ tn Grk “seeking.”

[21:31]  ² tn Or “information” (originally concerning a crime; BDAG 1050 s.v. φάσις).

[21:31]  ³ tn Grk “went up”; this verb is used because the report went up to the Antonia Fortress where the Roman garrison was stationed.

[21:31]  ⁴ tn Grk “the chiliarch” (an officer in command of a thousand soldiers). In Greek the term χιλίαρχος (ciliarco") literally described the “commander of a thousand,” but it was used as the standard translation for the Latin tribunus militum or tribunus militare, the military tribune who commanded a cohort of 600 men.

[21:31]  ⁵ sn A cohort was a Roman military unit of about 600 soldiers, one-tenth of a legion.

[21:31]  ⁶ tn BDAG 953 s.v. συγχέω has “Pass. w. act.force be in confusion…ὅλη συγχύννεται ᾿Ιερουσαλήμ 21:31.”

[21:32]  ⁷ tn Grk “who.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences, the relative pronoun (“who”) was translated as a pronoun (“he”) and a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

[21:32]  ⁸ tn Grk “taking…ran down.” The participle κατέδραμεν (katedramen) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[21:32]  ⁹ sn See the note on the word centurion in 10:1.

[21:32]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “to them”; the referent (the crowd) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[21:32]  ¹¹ tn Grk “seeing.” The participle ἰδόντες (idonte") has been taken temporally.

[21:32]  ¹² tn Grk “the chiliarch” (an officer in command of a thousand soldiers). See note on the term “commanding officer” in v. 31.

[21:32]  ¹³ sn The mob stopped beating Paul because they feared the Romans would arrest them for disturbing the peace and for mob violence. They would let the Roman officials take care of the matter from this point on.

[21:33]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “the chiliarch” (an officer in command of a thousand soldiers). See note on the term “commanding officer” in v. 31.

[21:33]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “seized.”

[21:33]  ¹⁶ tn The two chains would be something like handcuffs (BDAG 48 s.v. ἅλυσις and compare Acts 28:20).

[21:33]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “and he.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was begun in the translation, and καί (kai) has been replaced with a semicolon. “Then” has been supplied after “he” to clarify the logical sequence.

[21:33]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “and what it is”; this has been simplified to “what.”