17:10 The brothers sent Paul and Silas off to Berea 1 at once, during the night. When they arrived, 2 they went to the Jewish synagogue. 3 17:11 These Jews 4 were more open-minded 5 than those in Thessalonica, 6 for they eagerly 7 received 8 the message, examining 9 the scriptures carefully every day 10 to see if these things were so.
1 sn Berea (alternate spelling in NRSV Beroea; Greek Beroia) was a very old city in Macedonia on the river Astraeus about 45 mi (75 km) west of Thessalonica.
map For location see JP1-C1; JP2-C1; JP3-C1; JP4-C1.
2 tn Grk “who arriving there, went to.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the relative pronoun (οἵτινες, Joitine") has been left untranslated and a new English sentence begun. The participle παραγενόμενοι (paragenomenoi) has been taken temporally.
3 sn See the note on synagogue in 6:9.
4 tn Grk “These”; the referent (the Jews in the synagogue at Berea) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Or “more willing to learn.” L&N 27.48 and BDAG 404 s.v. εὐγενής 2 both use the term “open-minded” here. The point is that they were more receptive to Paul’s message.
6 sn Thessalonica was a city in Macedonia (modern Salonica).
map For location see JP1-C1; JP2-C1; JP3-C1; JP4-C1.
7 tn Or “willingly,” “readily”; Grk “with all eagerness.”
8 tn Grk “who received.” Here the relative pronoun (“who”) has been translated as a pronoun (“they”) preceded by a semicolon, which is less awkward in contemporary English than a relative clause at this point.
9 tn This verb (BDAG 66 s.v. ἀνακρίνω 1) refers to careful examination.
10 tn BDAG 437 s.v. ἡμέρα 2.c has “every day” for this phrase in this verse.