he loved them to the end

The Greek that is translated as “he loved them to the end” or similar in English is translated as “there wasn’t any limit to his love” in Tenango Otomi. (Source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)

love (by God)

Translator Lee Bramlett submitted this on the translation of the Greek word that is translated into English as “love” (referring to God’s love). This letter was then reposted by Wycliffe Bible Translators (see here ):

“Translator Lee Bramlett was confident that God had left His mark on the Hdi culture somewhere, but though he searched, he could not find it. Where was the footprint of God in the history or daily life of these Cameroonian people? What clue had He planted to let the Hdi know who He was and how He wanted to relate to them?

“Then one night in a dream, God prompted Lee to look again at the Hdi word for ‘love.’ Lee and his wife, Tammi, had learned that verbs in Hdi consistently end in one of three vowels. For almost every verb, they could find forms ending in i, a, and u. But when it came to the word for love, they could only find i and a. Why no u?

“Lee asked the Hdi translation committee, which included the most influential leaders in the community, ‘Could you ‘ɗvi’ your wife?’ ‘Yes,’ they said. That would mean that the wife had been loved but the love was gone.

“‘Could you ‘ɗva’ your wife?’ ‘Yes,’ they said. That kind of love depended on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.

“‘Could you ‘ɗvu’ your wife?’ Everyone laughed. ‘Of course not! If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say ‘ɗvu.’ It just doesn’t exist.’

“Lee sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, ‘Could God ‘ɗvu’ people?’

“There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of these elderly men. Finally they responded. ‘Do you know what this would mean? This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected His great love. He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.’

“One simple vowel and the meaning was changed from ‘I love you based on what you do and who you are,’ to ‘I love you, based on Who I am. I love you because of Me and NOT because of you.’

“God had encoded the story of His unconditional love right into their language. For centuries, the little word was there — unused but available, grammatically correct and quite understandable. When the word was finally spoken, it called into question their entire belief system. If God was like that, did they need the spirits of the ancestors to intercede for them? Did they need sorcery to relate to the spirits? Many decided the answer was no, and the number of Christ-followers quickly grew from a few hundred to several thousand.

“The New Testament in Hdi is ready to be printed now, and 29,000 speakers will soon be able to feel the impact of passages like Ephesians 5:25: ‘Husbands, ‘ɗvu’ your wives, just as Christ ‘ɗvu’-d the church…'”

In Hawai’i Creole English the love that God has is often translated as love an aloha. Aloha has a variety of meanings, including “hello,” “goodbye,” “love,” “thank you,” etc.

The Philippine languages of Cebuano, Tagalog, and Pampanga use a word (gugma, pag-ibig, and lugud respectively) that is also used for a “noble, refined love of people for each other,” distinct from romantic love. (Source: G. Henry Waterman in The Bible Translator 1960, p. 24ff. )

In Mairasi, the term that is used for love by God, for God and for people is the same: “desire one’s face.” (source: Enggavoter 2004)

See also love (Jesus for young, rich man), God is love and this devotion on YouVersion .

John as a first-person evangelist (John 13:1)

In the Yatzachi Zapotec translation of the Gospel of John, any reference to the evangelist and presumed narrator is done in the first person.

The translator Inez Butler explains (in: Notes on Translation, September 1967, pp. 10ff.):

“In revising the Gospel of John in Yatzachi Zapotec we realized from the start that the third person references of Jesus to himself as Son of Man had to be converted into first person references, but only more recently have we decided that similar change is necessary in John’s references to himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ As I worked on those changes and questioned the informant about his understanding of other passages in the Gospel, I discovered that the reader misses the whole focus of the book as an eyewitness account unless every reference to the disciples indicates the writer’s membership in the group. In view of that we went back through the entire book looking for ways to cue in the reader to the fact that John was an eyewitness and a participant in a many of the events, as well as the historian.

“When the disciples were participants in events along with Jesus, it was necessary to make explicit the fact that they accompanied him, although in the source language that is left implicit, since otherwise our rendering would imply that they were not present.”

In this verse, the Yatzachi Zapotec says: “All along Jesus had loved us who trust in him in this world. And he knew that the time was coming for him to leave this world to return to his Father. Therefore when it was about time for the Passover feast he showed us again how very much he loved us.”

complete verse (John 13:1)

Following are a number of back-translations of John 13:1:

  • Uma: “It was almost time for the big day Paskah. Yesus knew that the time had almost come for him to leave the world and go back to his Father. He loved the people who had become his portion in this world, and he loved them until the end.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “When the feast had not yet started, Isa knew already that his appointed time (to die) had come and that he should leave this world and go back to his Father. From the very beginning Isa had loved those that belonged to him, and now he showed them as to how great his love for them was.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “The day following that would be the celebration of the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that his leaving the earth was near because he was going to return to his Father God. His disciples here on earth were very big in his breath, and then he will show just how big they are in his breath.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “The fiesta called Passed-By was awaited (i.e. near), and Jesus knew that the time had already arrived for him to leave the world to return to his Father. From the first, he had continually loved his people in the world. But now he was going to show the largeness of his love.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “The beginning of the Fiesta of Passed/by now arrived. As for Jesus, he knew already that the time had now been reached when he would leave this world here, and go home to his Father. He really held dear his disciples who were here in this world. Well, now he showed how great was his holding-dear of them.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Before the Passover celebration Jesus already knew that the time had come to leave the world and go to heaven where his Father lived. Jesus very much loved his learners who lived here on the earth, there wasn’t any limit to his love.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on John 13:1

This verse serves as an introduction to the entire “Book of Glory.” It also gives the immediate setting for Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples (verse 2).

In Greek the first verse of Chapter 13 is one sentence, which Good News Translation, New English Bible, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch break into two sentences. It was now the day before the Passover Festival is more literally “but before the Feast of Passover….” The phrase “before the Feast of Passover” is rather vague. Anchor attempts to make it more specific by translating “It was just before the Passover Feast….” That John has reference to the day before the Passover Feast is seen by 18.28; 19.14,31,42. Good News Translation makes this information explicit in the present verse.

John clearly distinguishes between the Last Supper and the Jewish Passover, and in this respect he differs from the Synoptic Gospels, which understand the last supper to be a Passover meal. It is not within the scope of this commentary to discuss the problem of the relation between the Johannine and the Synoptic accounts of that last meal, but it is important to point out one or two facts. The Jewish religious calendar was a lunar calendar, and the beginning of a new day was counted from sunset. According to Old Testament regulations (Lev 23.5), the Passover meal was eaten on the evening that concluded the fourteenth day of Nisan and began the fifteenth day. For the Synoptic Gospels the meal that Jesus ate was a Passover meal (Mark 14.12 and parallels), whereas, according to the Gospel of John, the last supper took place a day before the Passover, and the trial and crucifixion of Jesus are clearly dated on Passover eve, the fourteenth of Nisan (18.28; 19.14). Although the calendar dates are different, John (19.31) agrees with the other Gospels on the day of the week on which these events took place. That is, both for the Synoptics and for John the meal was eaten on Thursday evening, and the crucifixion took place on Friday.

Good News Translation, New English Bible, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch all have a full stop after the reference to the “Passover” (or Passover Festival); some translations place a comma after “Passover,” but achieve essentially the same effect: “It was before the festival of the Passover, and Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to pass from this world to the Father” (Jerusalem Bible). The difference of focus between the two restructurings is slight. According to the restructuring of Good News Translation, the first sentence is simply a statement of time. Those translations which join the first two sentences with “and” (as Jerusalem Bible) tie the idea of Jesus’ knowing about his hour more closely to the day before the Passover Festival. The grammar of the Greek sentence is difficult, and no final decision can be made in favor of either viewpoint, though it seems more natural to tie the idea of knowing to the temporal clause, rather than separating the two as Good News Translation, New English Bible, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch do. In Greek the verb knew is a participle, but most modern English translations make it a finite verb.

It is impossible in most languages to translate literally It was now the day before the Passover Festival, for a temporal particle such as now would not fit in such a past tense sequence. Furthermore, some languages require a verb of “becoming” to indicate a progression of time, for example, “as the day before the Passover Festival became….”

In some languages the first sentence of verse 1 is best interpreted simply as a temporal setting. The identification of the day before the Passover Festival may often be indicated merely as a preposed element to the following sentence, for example, “The day before the Passover Festival Jesus knew that his hour had come….”

The hour is a reference to Jesus’ death and exaltation (see 2.4). As in many languages, one cannot say literally the hour had come. In some instances one can say “Jesus knew that it was almost time for him to leave this world” or “… that soon it would be the occasion for him to leave this world.” In certain instances neither “time” nor “occasion” may be employed, and one may simply say “Jesus knew that soon he would leave this world.”

To leave this world and go to the Father is more literally “to go from this world to the Father.” New English Bible also uses two verbs: “and he must leave this world and go to the Father.” For languages which require an indication of kinship relations, it may be necessary to say “his Father.”

Especially in the second half of John’s Gospel, the world is equated with those people who stand in opposition to God (see 1.10). This is a frequent term throughout John’s Gospel. However, it should be noted that in these last discourses the phrase “the world” or “this world” appears some forty times.

In 14.12,28 and 16.10,28 Jesus’ departure from this world is again spoken of as “going to the Father.”

Although the Greek of this verse is one sentence, most modern English translations have a full stop after Father. He had always loved is a participle in Greek, rendered rather literally in Revised Standard Version as “having loved.” This aorist participle is to be taken as applying to the expression of Jesus’ love throughout his entire ministry; and several other translations (New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) also render this participle He had always loved. The second appearance of the verb loved in this verse translates an aorist indicative, best understood as a reference to the love he revealed in his death on the cross.

The Greek clause rendered to the very end occurs in the emphatic position. Most translations understand it in the same way as Good News Translation does, that is, “to the very end of life.” However, it may also mean “completely,” the meaning given it in New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible, and La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond révisée. Although the idea of “completely” is certainly not foreign to the context, the fact that the hour of Jesus’ death is in focus in this passage tend to support the other interpretation.

In rendering those in the world who were his own, it is important to avoid the impression that these individuals were his personal slaves, that is, persons who were “his own” in a commercial sense. In some languages the most appropriate equivalent of his own would be “his followers” or “those who believed in him.”

He loved them to the very end must be translated in some languages “he loved them right up to the time he died” or “… to the end of his life.” Such a rendering may be necessary in languages which cannot speak of an “end” without indicating specifically what is involved. However, to translate “he loved them as long as he lived” might imply that he did not love them after he had died. This problem may be avoided by translating “he always loved them, even to the end of his life.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .