Matthew 9:36

New English Translation

³⁶When^[a] he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless,^[b] like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9:36 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
Matthew 9:36 tn Or perhaps “because they had been bewildered and helpless.” The grammatical issue is whether the perfect participles are to be regarded as predicate adjectives or as pluperfect periphrastic constructions (i.e., εἰμί in the indicative plus a perfect participle). Wallace regards these as pluperfect periphrastics, stating: “There may be a hint in Matthew’s use of the pluperfect, esp. in collocation with the shepherd-motif, that this situation would soon disappear” (ExSyn 584).

New English Translation (NET)