leprosy, leprous

The Greek and Hebrew terms that are often translated as “leprosy (or: defiling/skin disease)” or “leprous (person)” in English is translated in Mairasi as “the bad sickness,” since “leprosy is very common in the Mairasi area” (source: Enggavoter 2004).

Following are various other translations:

  • Shilluk: “disease of animals”
  • San Mateo Del Mar Huave: “devil sore” (this and the above are indigenous expressions)
  • Inupiaq: “decaying sores”
  • Kaqchikel: “skin-rotting disease” (source for this and three above: Eugene Nida in The Bible Translator 1960, p. 34f. )
  • Noongar: “bad skin disease” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Tzotzil “rotting sickness” (source: Ronald D. Olson in Notes on Translation January, 1968, p. 15ff.)
  • Usila Chinantec “sickness like mal de pinta” (a skin disease involving discoloration by loss of pigment) (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)

See also stricken and leprosy healed.

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Leprosy (Word Study) and leprosy .

Aaron

The name that is transliterated as “Aaron” in English is translated in Catalan Sign Language and Spanish Sign Language as “stones on chest plate” (according to Exodus 28:15-30) (Source: John Elwode in The Bible Translator 2008, p. 78ff.)


“Aaron” in Spanish Sign Language, source: Sociedad Bíblica de España

In Colombian Sign Language, Honduras Sign Language, and American Sign Language, the chest plate is outlined (in ASL it is outlined using the letter “A”):


“Aaron” in ASL (source )

See also Moses and this lectionary in The Christian Century .

Translation commentary on Leviticus 22:4

Compare 7.19b-21. There is all the more reason to forbid to the priests what is not allowed to the lay people.

None of the line of Aaron: the word translated line here has the same root as “descendant” in verse 3. This expression may equally well be translated “No priest…” or “No man in the priestly family….”

Leper: better, “who has a dreaded skin disease,” as in Good News Translation. See 13.8 and the comments at the beginning of chapter 13.

Discharge: see 15.2.

An emission of semen: literally “a discharge,” but this word is used almost always of a discharge from the sexual organs. If the subject is a woman, it refers to the menstrual flow. But when the subject is a male, the reference is to seminal fluid. Some languages have very different ways of talking about this bodily function. One may say “pass the liquid of his manhood” or some other expression that is also far from the form of the source text. Compare 15.16-18.

The Revised Standard Version rendering of the last part of this verse could easily give the impression that it is forbidden to touch anything that has been in contact with a dead body, or to touch a man who has had an emission of semen. In translation these words should be structured in such a way as to avoid such an impression. It should be clear that a priest becomes unclean either by touching an object that has touched a corpse or by having an emission of semen himself. There is no mention in this verse of touching another person who has had such an emission.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .