striped / speckled / spotted

The Hebrew that is translated as “striped, speckled, and spotted” in English did not have an immediately accessible translation in Orma.

George Payton tells about how the translation team went about finding the right terms: “In Gen. 30 Jacob is living with uncle Laban taking care of Laban’s livestock. Then when Jacob complained about what his payment should be, Laban said that Jacob could keep all the livestock that were spotted, speckled or striped, but the solid colors white and black belonged to Laban. The trouble was how to translate ‘speckled, spotted, striped.’ The people we were translating for were herdsmen; they kept goats, sheep and cattle. They told me that they have one set of words for colors and patterns for describing the cattle, and a different set of vocabulary when talking about goats and sheep. I thought maybe we could tap into their rich ‘goat’ vocabulary and use some of their words in Genesis. So we went to a friend’s livestock to see the animals. I saw a pattern that was ‘strip-ish’ and asked what they called that pattern. Then I did the same for ‘spot-ish’ and ‘speckle-ish.’ Our goal was not to get an exact representation of the patterns mentioned in the Bible, but to give a general picture of some common patterns that people would know. So we used those terms in the translation and it read very well. When we tested it, no one asked what those words meant because everyone knew them.”

In Low German the different colors are swartbunt / “black pied” or swartbrun / “black-brown,” the traditional colorings of cattle in Northern Germany, where Low German is spoken (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1937, republ. 2006).

complete verse (Genesis 30:39)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Genesis 30:39:

  • Newari: “Children of [cattle] mating before the branch splinters, were born spotted.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “He then placed those branches in-front-of the watering-trough of the animals so-that the animals could-see (the branches) when they (came-to-)drink. There in-front-of those branches the goats would-mate when they drank. When they gave-birth, their young (were) spotted.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “The animals also mated in front of the branches, and eventually they gave birth to animals that were speckled, or to animals that were spotted, or to animals that had black and white stripes on them.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Genesis 30:39

The flocks bred in front of the rods and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted: notice that Good News Translation and others make the whole of verse 39 a result. For flocks bred see Good News Translation verse 38, “the animals mated.” In front of the rods may need to be expressed as “where they could see the striped branches.” Brought forth means gave birth to. This is often a different expression than that used for human beings. For striped, speckled, and spotted see the terms used in verses 32 and 35.

A significant number of translations take flocks in this verse to refer only to the goats, in contrast to the reference to the sheep in the next verse. So New Jerusalem Bible has “The goats thus mated in front of the shoots, and the goats produced….” Speiser is very similar; and Good News Translation and Revised English Bible also make this verse refer only to the goats. While this is not absolutely required by the Hebrew, it suits the context very well.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .