purple

The Greek that is translated as “purple” in English is translated as “blue-red” in Ojitlán Chinantec.

In Kasua was a little bit more involved, as Rachel Greco recalls (in The PNG Experience):

“The Kasua people of Western Province have no word for the color purple. They have words for many other colors: black, red, white, yellow, green, and blue, but not for the color of royalty.

“About nine New Testament passages mention people placing a purple robe on Jesus. The Kasua translation team always wanted to use the word ‘red,’ or keyalo, to describe the robe. Tommy, one of the translation team helpers, disagreed because this is not historically accurate or signifies the royalty of Jesus.

“One of the main rules of translation is that the team must stick to the historical facts when they translate a passage. If they don’t, then how can the readers trust what they’re reading is true? Other questions about truth could bubble in the reader’s minds about the Scriptures. For this reason, Tommy was not willing to change the word purple. So the team hung up the problem, hoping to revisit it later with more inspiration.

“God did not disappoint.

“Years later, Tommy hiked with some of the men near their village. They saw a tree that possessed bulbous growths growing on the side of it like fruit. These growths were ‘the most beautiful color of purple I’d ever seen,’ explained Tommy.

“’What is the name of this tree?’ Tommy asked the men.

“’This is an Okani tree,’ they replied.

“Tommy suggested, ‘Why don’t you, in those passages where we’ve been struggling to translate the color purple, use ‘they put a robe on Jesus the color of the fruit of the Okani tree’?

“’Yeah. We know exactly what color that is,’ the men said enthusiastically.

“Everyone in their village would also visualize this phrase accurately, as the Okani tree is the only tree in that area that produces this kind of purple growth. So now, among the Kasua people, in his royal purple robe, Jesus is shown to be the king that he is.”

cubit

The Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek that is translated as “cubit” or into a metric or imperial measurement in English is translated in Kutu, Kwere, and Nyamwezi as makono or “armlength.” Since a cubit is the measurement from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, one armlength (measured from the center of the chest to the fingertips) equals two cubits or roughly 1 meter. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

In Klao it is converted into “hand spans” (app. 6 inches or 12 cm) and “finger spans” (app. 1 inch or 2 cm) (Source: Don Slager)

Translation commentary on Exod 27:16

For the gate of the court refers to “the entrance itself” (Good News Translation) into the courtyard. It was to be in the center of the eastern side, with about 7½ yards between the one edge of it and the northeast corner, and 7½ yards between the other edge of it and the southeast corner. (See verses 14-15.) There shall be a screen is simply “a screen,” the same word (masak) used in 26.36 for the screen at the eastern end of the tabernacle. (See the comment there.) Twenty cubits long is about “10 yards long” (Good News Translation), or “9 meters.”

Of blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen is identical to the description in 26.31 and 36. (See the comment at 26.1 for the materials, and at 25.4 for the colors.) Embroidered with needlework is identical with 26.36.

It shall have four pillars and with them four bases is literally “their pillars four and their bases four.” The plural pronoun in “their bases” refers to the four pillars, but the same pronoun in “their pillars” seems to have no antecedent. New Jerusalem Bible changes this to the singular, “with its four poles and their four sockets.” Good News Translation avoids this grammatical problem: “It is to be supported by four posts in four bases” (similarly New International Version, New American Bible, Revised English Bible, and others).

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .