complete verse (Matthew 10:29)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 10:29:

  • Uma: “‘Two sparrows are usually sold for just one cent coin. But even so, there is not one that dies if it is not the will of God your Father.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “There are little birds that one can buy two for one centavo. Even though they are of little value, none of them falls to the earth/ground if not from the will of God.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “We can buy two very small birds for a single cent because their value is very small, but there isn’t even one of them that can fall to the ground if our Father God doesn’t want it to.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “But remember/consider also the manner of God your Father with the rice-birds (see here ). Two rice-birds are sold for a five-centavo-piece only, isn’t it so? But not even one of them dies and falls if he doesn’t allow it.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “For isn’t it so that rice-birds (see here) are sold for just a few centavos for two? Well even though it’s as cheap as that, not even one of them can fall to the ground unless it is determined by your Father in heaven.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “When two birds are sold, only one coin is paid. But not even one bird is lost except that your Father has given permission.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Matthew 10:29

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? translates a negative rhetorical question. Since the particular form of the question expects the answer “yes,” Good News Translation shifts to a statement and translates “For only a penny you can buy two sparrows.” Barclay renders “Everyone knows that two sparrows can be bought for one farthing.” The question form can sometimes be retained with questions such as “It’s true, isn’t it, that two sparrows only cost a penny?” or “It only takes a penny to buy two sparrows, doesn’t it?”

Sparrows may not be known, in which case translators can say “two common birds” or “two small birds.”

The Greek word penny refers to a Roman copper coin worth about one sixteenth of the coin that was the workman’s average daily wage. Translators may have a small unit of currency like penny that they can use. Sometimes “a small coin” is possible, and “very little money” is another common translation.

Will fall to the ground may need to be present tense, as in “falls to the ground.” Other translations render it as “dies.”

Without your Father’s will (Good News Translation “without your Father’s consent”) is literally “without your Father.” Scholarly opinion supports this interpretation, which is followed in Good News Translation, Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, An American Translation, Moffatt, and New American Bible. But other scholars interpret the phrase to mean “without your Father knowing” (New Jerusalem Bible; similarly Phillips and Barclay). The context seems to favor the first of these possibilities, and Hellenistic Greek literature uses the phrase “without the gods” to mean “without the will of the gods.” Without your Father’s will may be rendered “unless God your Father has agreed” or “without your Father willing it.”

The sentence may be more natural if the order is different, as in “And yet, unless your Father agrees to it, not one of them will even fall to the ground.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .