The Hebrew that is translated in English as “(Where is) the God of Elijah” is difficult to translate in some Mayan languages. “If you say the God of Elijah, you are implying that he is not the God of Elisha. It has to be translated as something like, ‘Where is the power that God gave to Elijah.'”
Jerusalem (gender of)
“In the book of Lamentations, Jerusalem is presented as a series of feminine metaphors. (…) She is called a widow, a queen among the provinces, the Daughter of Zion, the Virgin Daughter of Judah. She weeps at night, her tears flow like a river, her lovers fail to console her. From beginning to end, Jerusalem is a woman. However this aspect of the text cannot be reproduced in the Garifuna translation, because in this language all cities are masculine. Jerusalem becomes the king of all provinces and the lovers who fail to console him are women.” (Source: Ronald Ross in Omanson 2001, p. 374)
front / back / left / right
The Hebrew of Ezekiel 1:10 is typically translated in English as “Each living creature had four different faces: a human face in front, a lion’s face at the right, a bull’s face at the left, and an eagle’s face at the back.” Tzeltal has no words for left, right, front or back, so translation is “Each living creature had four different faces: on one side of their head they had a human face, on another they had a lion’s face, on another they had a bull’s face and on the last side they had an eagle’s face.” (Source: Ronald Ross in Omanson 2001, p. 361)
my son / child
The Hebrew that is translated in English as “my son” or “my child” was translated in Poqomchi’ as hat wak’uun noq wilkaat: “you my son (as it were)” because “in many languages (including the Mayan ones), can only be said to one’s offspring.”
Leviathan
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated in English as “Leviathan” is translated in Poqomchi’ as “monster crocodile.”
Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name
Ron Ross talks about the problems of metaphors in translation in relation to Psalm 89:12 where The Hebrew is translated in English as “[the mountains] Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name.” “[This] will be tough in many languages in which such metaphoric uses either sound ridiculous or are taken literally. This seems to be the case in Poqomchi’. When I suggested to the Poqomchi’ translator that he try to keep the image of the mountains singing, his response was that he could do that, because nothing is impossible for God.”
rejoice with trembling
The Hebrew that is translated as “rejoice with trembling” (or just: “trembling”) in English is translated in Poqomchi’ with the existing phrase “tremble with joy,” “so the source of the trembling seems to come from the joy and not from the fear of God.”
implicit information made explicit (Job 41:8)
The Hebrew is translated in English as “Lay hands on it [the Leviathan]; think of the battle; you will not do it again!” or similar. Here and in the Hebrew original the fear of touching the Leviathan again is implied. In Poqomchi’ it had to be made explicit with the addition of “because you’ll be very much afraid of him.”
See also Leviathan.