The Greek that is translated in English as “devil” is sometimes translated with indigenous specific names, such as “the avaricious one” in Tetelcingo Nahuatl, “the malicious deity” in Toraja-Sa’dan (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel), or in Yoruba as èṣù. “Èṣù is thought of as bringing evil, but also as giving protection. The birth of a child may be attributed to him, as the names given to some babies show, Èṣùbiyi (Èṣù brought this forth), and Èṣùtoyin (Èṣù is worthy of praise).” (Source: John Hargreaves in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 39ff. )
Other translations include:
Muna: Kafeompu’ando seetani or “Master of the evil-spirits” (source: René van den Berg)
Mairasi: owe er epar nan or “headman of malevolent spirits” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
Ojitlán Chinantec: as “head of the worldlings” (source for the last two: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125).
Mandarin Chinesemóguǐ (魔鬼), literally “magical ghost.” This is a term that was adopted from Buddhist sources into early Catholic writings and later also by Protestant translators. (Source: Zetzsche 1996, p. 32)
In Lak and Shughni it is translated with terms of feminine gender. Vitaly Voinov tells this story (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight):
“In the Lak language of Dagestan, the names ‘Iblis’ and ‘sheytan’ (referring to Satan and his minions, respectively) in this language were borrowed from the Arabic Islamic tradition, but they entered Lak as feminine nouns, not masculine nouns. This means that they grammatically function like nouns referring to females in Lak; in other words, Laks are likely to think of Iblis as a woman, not a man, because of the obligatory grammatical patterning of Lak noun classes. Thus, when the team explained (in Russian) what the Lak translation of Jesus’ wilderness temptation narrative at the beginning of Matthew 4 said, it sounded something like the following: ‘After this, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Iblis… .The temptress came to Jesus, and she said to Him…’
“Since this information (that the devil is a female spirit) is part of the very name used for Satan in Lak, nothing can really be done about this in the translation. The Lak translator did not think that the feminine gender of Iblis should cause any serious misunderstandings among readers, so we agreed to leave it in the translation. Prior to this, I had never heard about languages in which the devil is pictured as a woman, but recently I was told by a speaker of the Shughni language that in their language Sheytan is also feminine. This puts an interesting spin on things. The devil is of course a spirit, neither male nor female in a biologically-meaningful sense. But Bible translators are by nature very risk-aversive and, where possible, want to avoid any translation that might feed misleading information to readers. So what can a translator do about this? In many cases, such as the present one, one has to just accept the existing language structure and go on.”
The Greek that is typically translated as “eternity,” “forever,” or “forever and ever” in English are translated in Mairasi as “mashed out infinitely.” Lloyd Peckham explains: “Bark cloth required pounding. It got longer and wider as it got pounded. Similarly, life gets pounded or mashed to lengthen it into infinity. Tubers also get mashed into the standard way of serving the staple food, like the fufu of Uganda, or like poi of Hawaii. It spreads out into infinity.” (Source: Lloyd Peckham)
In Lisu the phrase “forever and ever” is translated as ꓕꓲꓽ ꓞꓲꓼ ꓕꓲ ꓑ — thi tsi thi pa, verbatim translated as “one – lifetime – one – world.” This construction follows a traditional four-couplet construct in oral Lisu poetry that is usually in the form ABAC or ABCB. (Source: Arrington 2020, p. 57f.)
Apali: “God’s one with talk from the head” (“basically God’s messenger since head refers to any leader’s talk”) (source: Martha Wade)
Michoacán Nahuatl: “clean helper of God” (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
Noongar: Hdjin-djin-kwabba or “spirit good” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Wè Northern (Wɛɛ): Kea ‘a “sooa or “the Lord’s soldier” (also: “God’s soldier” or “his soldier”) (source: Drew Maust)
Iwaidja: “a man sent with a message” (Sam Freney explains the genesis of this term [in this article): “For example, in Darwin last year, as we were working on a new translation of Luke 2:6–12 in Iwaidja, a Northern Territory language, the translators had written ‘angel’ as ‘a man with eagle wings’. Even before getting to the question of whether this was an accurate term (or one that imported some other information in), the word for ‘eagle’ started getting discussed. One of the translators had her teenage granddaughter with her, and this word didn’t mean anything to her at all. She’d never heard of it, as it was an archaic term that younger people didn’t use anymore. They ended up changing the translation of ‘angel’ to something like ‘a man sent with a message’, which is both more accurate and clear.”)
Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 25:41:
Uma: “‘After that, I will say to those on my left side: ‘Go away from here, you who have been cursed by my Father! Go into the fire that continually burns, that was prepared for the King of Evil-ones and angels that follow him.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “‘Then I will say to the people on my left side, ‘You, the ones under the wrath of God, leave from me and go to the fire of hell which has been prepared beforehand for the leader of demons and his servants.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then I will say to the people who are on my left side, ‘You who are cursed by my Father God, away from here, because you go into the flame that has no end that was prepared before for Satan as a means of punishing him along with his messengers.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “‘Then I will say to the people on my left, ‘You who are sentenced/condemned to be punished, go-away! Go to the place of fire that never goes-out that is already-prepared for the Diablo and his angels.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “And then I will next say to those on my left, ‘As for you, go far from me, you who have punishment reserved for you. You are now to be there in the fire which never dies down, which is the punishment which has been reserved for Satanas and his servants/messengers.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “The ruler will then say to the people who are at his left: ‘Get away from me, because God does not look well upon you. Now go away to punishment, where the fire is forever. This is the fire God determined for the devil along with the angels who follow the devil to go to.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
You cursed is more literally “you who have been cursed,” in which God is the understood agent: “you that are under God’s curse” (Good News Translation). Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire is translated in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch as “Get out of my sight! God has cursed you! Go to the eternal fire.” To curse is to call down evil on someone or something, so that you cursed can also be “God has called down evil on you” or “you are to receive the evil that God has sent for you.”
Prepared for the devil also presupposes God as the agent, and so one may translate “which God has prepared for the devil.”
Eternal fire is discussed at 18.8.
The devil was discussed at 4.1.
Since angels frequently has the connotation of good spiritual beings, it may be advisable to follow the pattern of Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch: “Satan and his helpers.”
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 .
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