On the expectation of the Messiah from Bethlehem, see John 7.41-42. Good News Translation marks Bethlehem as a “town.” See comments on 2.1.

In some languages it will be necessary to answer Herod’s question with a full sentence, as in “He will be born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea.”

Note that the phrase which introduces the reported speech, They told him, is at the beginning of all they said in Revised Standard Version, but has been inserted in the middle of the quote itself in Good News Translation. In English, as in many languages, this is perhaps a matter of style. But in other languages this is completely unnatural, so that the translator can only do something similar to the Revised Standard Version form.

The Greek passive construction for so it is written by the prophet is transformed by Good News Translation into an active construction: “For this is what the prophet wrote.” The same “quotation formula” (it is written) is also found in 4.4, 6, 7, 10; 11.10; 21.13; 26.24, 31.

The causative for can be handled in many ways: “We know this because of what the prophet wrote,” or “This is how we know this thing: the prophet wrote…,” or even in some languages, “The prophet wrote that it would be in the town of Bethlehem in Judah. He said….” Of course, other languages will do something very similar to Good News Bible.

For prophet, see comments on 1.22. In languages where there is already an Old Testament, it is good to indicate in the footnotes that this is a quotation from the book of the prophet Micah, but it will not be necessary to put this information in the text.

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 .