It may be advisable to begin this verse with a new sentence, as does Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch. Good News Translation retains the single sentence structure but transforms salutations into a verb construction and repeats the subject and verb (“they love”) from the previous verse: “they love to be greeted with respect.” It may be preferable to use an active formation: “they love other people to greet them with respect.”

Market places were earlier mentioned in 11.16; 20.3.

Rabbi is a transliteration of a Hebrew word which means “my great one”; in Jesus’ day it was used exclusively as an honorific for teachers. In verse 8 the identification is made of rabbi and “teacher,” which is the basis for Good News Translation‘s “to have people call them, ‘Teacher.’ ” Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel the word is employed only by Judas when he addresses Jesus during the last meal (26.25) and at the time of betrayal (26.49).

In many societies “Teacher” is a term of respect and can be used to translate rabbi. Sometimes “My teacher” is better. However, if readers will fail to understand by this that a term of respect was involved, and if they will think that these people were actually the teachers of the people addressing them, then some other respectful title that can be used for a teacher should be used.

Men in this context refers to people in general.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .