inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (2John 1:6)

Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)

The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).

For this verse, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the addressee).

Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.

complete verse (2 John 1:6)

Following are a number of back-translations of 2 John 1:6:

  • Uma: “This is what is called love: to follow God’s command(s). And this is his command that you have heard all along from the first: we must love one another.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “If we (dual) love God and our (dual) fellows we (dual) ought to follow/obey the commands of God. And since the time you trusted in Isa this has been commanded to you that you should steadfastly love each other.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “For if we love each other, we will fulfill the commands of God. For what He commanded us was: it is necessary that we love each other.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “If it is true then that we love, we will obey the commands of God. And his command that we came-to-know at the first, we must love-one-another.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “This is what testifies that we hold God dear, this that we live in harmony with what he commanded. Well this is that which he commanded in the past, that we live lives characterized by valuing one another.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “If we love God then we will do what God commands. And this word which God commands is the word you heard at first, that we love our fellowmen.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
  • Yatzachi Zapotec: “This is what we will do if we love God, we will do what he commands. When you began to trust in Christ back then you knew that he commands us to love our fellows.”
  • Eastern Highland Otomi: “And really we can love one another if we do all that God told us. And the Word he told us at the beginning is that continually we love one another.”
  • Isthmus Zapotec: “We love one another when we walk as he says. And as he says is that we should love one another. And also that is what you heard from past time.” (Source for this and two above: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)

Translation commentary on 2 John 1:6

For this is love, that we follow his commandments, compare 1 John 5.3a. The first clause has also been rendered ‘love means (or consists in) this.’ The that clause states what exactly love means, or in what love consists. The term love is to be taken here in its widest range: love for God and for each other.

Follow his commandments in the Greek is literally “to walk in his commandments.” The expression refers to virtually the same thing as “to walk in truth” (verse 4). The rendering may closely resemble that of “to keep his commandments” in 1 John 2.3 (which see), or it may even be the same.

This is the commandment…, that you follow love is in the Greek literally “this is the commandment…, that in it you walk.” There is a certain parallelism between this sentence (verse 6b) and the preceding one (verse 6a), and the relationship between the two clauses in each sentence is the same. Verse 6b is ambiguous in two aspects: (1) The demonstrative this may point back to verse 6a (which in its turn explains the last clause of verse 5) or forward to the that clause of verse 6b. (2) In the Greek clause “in it you walk,” the pronoun “it” may refer to “commandment” (verse 6b) or to “love” (verse 6a).

Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, and the majority of translators take this as pointing forward and interpret “in it you walk” as meaning “in love you walk”; hence, “you follow love.” Thus interpreted verse 6b is a reverse way of saying what is said in verse 6a. The statement serves to show that love and “God’s commandment” are virtually interchangeable; man can truly practice love only by doing what God has told him to do, and, conversely, what God always has told him to do is to love. This interpretation is based on, and does justice to, the parallelism existing between the two parts of verse 6.

The expression follow love, or “walk/live in love,” may have to be restructured. One may say, for example, ‘to live as people who love (God and their brothers),’ ‘to act as (or to do what) people who love (God and their brothers) ought to do.’

An objection against the interpretation of verse 6b just given is that in itself the Greek word order in the whole verse seems to suggest that “it” refers to commandment rather than to love. Some translators give a rendering along these lines; for example, “this is the command which was given you from the beginning, to be your rule of life” (New English Bible), ‘this now is the command which you received already in the very beginning, in order that you would really live in accordance with it.’ Such renderings are certainly possible and give to verse 6b a force which the verse lacks in the first-mentioned interpretation.

For as you have heard from the beginning see comments on 1 John 2.7. The clause is rather redundant after verse 5. This redundancy serves to stress the validity of the statement in which these words are embedded. The clause, again, has the character of a parenthetical statement and may better be transposed. It is often best rendered then as a full sentence at the end of the verse, ‘This is what you have heard from the beginning.’

Quoted with permission from Haas, C., de Jonge, M. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on The Second Letter of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .