complete verse (Luke 19:20)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 19:20:

  • Noongar: “Another servant came and said, ‘Your Majesty, here is your one gold coin, take it. I kept your coin and I hid the coin in a cloth.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “‘From there, another servant also came. He said: ‘Here is your (sing.) money, King. I stored it well, I wrapped it with a handkerchief.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Then the one also went to him and said, ‘Sir, here is your gold-coin. I wrapped it well in a handkerchief and stored it.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then the third servant came near and he said, ‘Here is the money that you had me keep; I carefully wrapped it up and put it away,” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “‘Another servant then went and said, ‘Sir King, here also is the money you (sing.) gave me. I wrapped it in a handkerchief and just stored it away,” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Another person approached and said, ‘Master, here is that money of yours. I wrapped it in a cloth and then hid it so that it wouldn’t be-subtracted-from.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Luke 19:20 – 19:21

Exegesis:

kai ho heteros ēlthen ‘and the other came,’ as if there were only three instead of ten (v. 13). But the first two and the third represent the two different attitudes of diligence and negligence respectively.

idou hē mna sou ‘behold your mina,’ i.e. ‘here is your mina.’

hēn eichon apokeimenēn en soudariō ‘which I kept put away in a facecloth.’ eichon is durative imperfect.

apokeimai ‘to be put away,’ ‘to be stored up.’

soudarion ‘face-cloth.’ ephoboumēn gar se ‘for I was afraid of you,’ durative imperfect.

hoti anthrōpos austēros ei ‘because you are an exacting man.’ This statement is illustrated by the subsequent asyndetic sentence.

austēros (also v. 22) ‘hard,’ ‘severe,’ ‘exacting.’

aireis ho ouk ethēkas ‘you take away what you did not put down,’ a proverbial saying, which refers probably to taking away from the threshing floor corn which one had not brought in and put down for threshing, cf. parallels quoted by Creed. Here it is used in the more general meaning of taking what one has not laboured for, cf. Phillips. This is in accordance with therizeis ho ouk espeiras (cf. on 12.24) ‘you reap what you did not sow.’ In both clauses the present tense is habitual.

Translation:

Another, or, ‘yet another’ (Javanese); or, “the next” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation), “the third” (New English Bible). To use a term that expresses not serial but qualitative differentiation is not advisable.

Which I kept laid away in a napkin, often better rendered as a new sentence, e.g. ‘I kept it put away in a napkin,’ ‘I wrapped it up in a face-cloth and (so) kept it safe.’ — Napkin, or, ‘face-cloth,’ ‘handkerchief,’ often simply ‘piece of cloth.’

(V. 21) I was afraid of you. The phrase of you is sometimes omitted, as virtually redundant.

You are a severe man, or, ‘your character (lit. the you-ness) is severe’ (Tae’). Some renderings of severe basically mean ‘hard’ (Batak Toba), ‘hard hearted’ (Ekari), ‘hard-livered’ (Bahasa Indonesia), ‘rigid’ (Toraja-Sa’dan), ‘stinging’ (Tae’).

You take up what you did not lay down, or to stress the illustrative character of the sentence, ‘you are (like) a man who takes up what he did not lay down, or, what is not his’ (cf. Good News Translation). Other pairs of contrastive terms used are, “draw out—put in” (New English Bible), ‘claim back—deposit’ (Willibrord). An equivalent English saying is, “getting something for nothing” (Phillips).

For to reap and to sow see on 12.24 and 8.5, and references.

Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.