concubine

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “concubine” in English is translated in Kutu as “slave made to be his woman” or “female slave he married.”

Similarly, in Kwere it is translated as “slaves who were like wives.” The translation team explained: “We discussed how concubines are different from prostitutes (there is a word for that) in that they have a similar status to wives (they live with the man often and are provided for physically) and so we decided not to use the word for prostitute which is a loose woman or someone engaging in sexual immorality. But since concubines were an accepted part of the society and culture, this would give wrong meaning.” (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

Translation commentary on 1 Chronicles 3:9

All these were David’s sons, besides the sons of the concubines: The demonstrative pronoun these refers to the sons of David mentioned in verses 1-8. All these were David’s sons is literally “All David’s sons.” King James Version says “These were all the sons of David,” which gives the wrong impression that David had no other sons. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch is better with “They all were fully legitimate sons of David,” which means they had the full rights of sonship. The sons born by the wives of David had a status higher than that of the sons born by his concubines. For concubines see the comments on 1 Chr 1.32. This verse does not indicate how many other sons David had by his concubines.

And Tamar was their sister: Tamar was the sister of David’s sons, not a sister of the concubines, as the Revised Standard Version rendering might seem to suggest. If a literal translation results in ambiguity or misunderstanding, it may be necessary to restate the relationship as in Good News Translation (also New Living Translation, Bible en français courant, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente, Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje). In some languages it may be better to say “David also had a daughter named Tamar.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .