29And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law, yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments but sinned against your ordinances, by the observance of which a person shall live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey.
The Hebrew, Greek, and Latin that is translated as “pride” in English is translated as “continually boasting” (Amganad Ifugao), “lifting oneself up” (Tzeltal), “answering haughtily” (Yucateco) (source: Bratcher / Nida), “unbent neck” (like llamas) (Kaqchikel) (source: Nida 1952, p. 151), or “praising oneself, saying: I am better” (Shipibo-Conibo) (source: Nida 1964, p. 237).
In the HausaCommon Language Ajami Bible it is idiomatically translated as girman kai or “bigness of head.” (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
The Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and Greek that is translated in English typically as “obedience” or “obey” is translated in Tepeuxila Cuicatec as “thing hearing.” “For to hear is to obey.” (Source: Marjorie Davis in The Bible Translator 1952, p. 34ff. )
In Huba it is translated as hya nǝu nyacha: “follow (his) mouth.” (Source: David Frank in this blog post )
In Central Mazahua it is translated as “listen-obey” and in Huehuetla Tepehua as “believe-obey” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), and in Noongar as dwangka-don, lit. “hear do” (source: Portions of the Holy Bible in the Nyunga language of Australia, 2018).
The Hebrew and Greek that is typically translated as “sin” in English has a wide variety of translations.
The Greek ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō) carries the original verbatim meaning of “miss the mark.” Likewise, many translations contain the “connotation of moral responsibility.” Loma has (for certain types of sin) “leaving the road” (which “implies a definite standard, the transgression of which is sin”) or Navajo uses “that which is off to the side.” (Source: Bratcher / Nida). In Toraja-Sa’dan the translation is kasalan, which originally meant “transgression of a religious or moral rule” and has shifted its meaning in the context of the Bible to “transgression of God’s commandments.” (Source: H. van der Veen in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 21ff. ).
In Shipibo-Conibo the term is hocha. Nida (1952, p. 149) tells the story of its choosing: “In some instances a native expression for sin includes many connotations, and its full meaning must be completely understood before one ever attempts to use it. This was true, for example, of the term hocha first proposed by Shipibo-Conibo natives as an equivalent for ‘sin.’ The term seemed quite all right until one day the translator heard a girl say after having broken a little pottery jar that she was guilty of ‘hocha.’ Breaking such a little jar scarcely seemed to be sin. However, the Shipibos insisted that hocha was really sin, and they explained more fully the meaning of the word. It could be used of breaking a jar, but only if the jar belonged to someone else. Hocha was nothing more nor less than destroying the possessions of another, but the meaning did not stop with purely material possessions. In their belief God owns the world and all that is in it. Anyone who destroys the work and plan of God is guilty of hocha. Hence the murderer is of all men most guilty of hocha, for he has destroyed God’s most important possession in the world, namely, man. Any destructive and malevolent spirit is hocha, for it is antagonistic and harmful to God’s creation. Rather than being a feeble word for some accidental event, this word for sin turned out to be exceedingly rich in meaning and laid a foundation for the full presentation of the redemptive act of God.”
In Kaingang, the translation is “break God’s word” and in Sandawe the original meaning of the Greek term (see above) is perfectly reflected with “miss the mark.” (Source: Ursula Wiesemann in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 36ff., 43)
Martin Ehrensvärd, one of the translators for the DanishBibelen 2020, comments on the translation of this term: “We would explain terms, such that e.g. sin often became ‘doing what God does not want’ or ‘breaking God’s law’, ‘letting God down’, ‘disrespecting God’, ‘doing evil’, ‘acting stupidly’, ‘becoming guilty’. Now why couldn’t we just use the word sin? Well, sin in contemporary Danish, outside of the church, is mostly used about things such as delicious but unhealthy foods. Exquisite cakes and chocolates are what a sin is today.” (Source: Ehrensvärd in HIPHIL Novum 8/2023, p. 81ff. )
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed. The first example is from a language where God is always addressed distinctly formal whereas the second is one where the opposite choice was made.
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Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff.), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.
Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”
In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.
Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking (source Philip Noss).
In Dutch and Western Frisian translations, however, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.
Thou didst warn them in order to turn them back to thy law: Revised Standard Version gives a fairly literal translation of this complex sentence. The text here does not specify how God warned his people. The words of a message are only implied, and a messenger or messengers can only be assumed. This information is given in the following verse and should not be made explicit here. The purpose of God’s warning to his people was to cause them to return to his law (torah in Hebrew). Turn them back to thy law means that they should once again obey God’s commands. Good News Translation simplifies the structure of this sentence and interprets torah in its basic sense of “instructions” or “teachings.” This entire verse in Hebrew is syntactically complex and may require restructuring in the receptor language as Good News Translation and Bible en français courant have done. The translator should not simplify and condense the verse as much as Contemporary English Version has done.
Yet they acted presumptuously: God’s warning was meant to help them. The Hebrew begins this clause with the connective conjunction followed by the independent pronoun they to indicate that the warning will not be heeded. Revised Standard Version therefore translates with the conjunction Yet. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible conveys the emphasis of the Hebrew pronoun in French as follows: “but they, they acted with stubbornness” (also Bible en français courant). In English a possible rendering is “But as for them, they….”
Acted presumptuously is repeated for the third time in this chapter (see verses 10 and 16).
Did not obey thy commandments: See verse 16 above.
Sinned against thy ordinances: For sinned see Neh 1.6, and for ordinances (mishpat in Hebrew), see Neh 1.7. The verbal expression “to sin against” means “to disobey”; that is, the people of Israel broke God’s laws.
By observance of which a man shall live: In Hebrew this is literally “which a man obeys and he will live by them.” This reflects the concept in Deuteronomy that through keeping God’s commands, a person finds a long and fulfilling life (Deut 5.33; 8.1; 30.16). This concept is also recorded almost identically in Lev 18.5b, which in Hebrew is literally “by which man finds life if he keeps them.” In some languages translators will need to make it clear that the quality of life will be good; for example, “if people obey the commands of God they will have good lives” or “… they will live good lives.” Although the Hebrew text is translated by Revised Standard Version as a man, the meaning here includes men and women generally and should be translated accordingly (so Bible en français courant, New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible).
Turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey: In Hebrew turned a stubborn shoulder is literally “they turned a withdrawing shoulder.” Both this metaphor and the metaphor stiffened their neck (see verse 16 above) are taken from the behavior of an ox when it refuses to let a yoke be put on its shoulders. The two expressions both express stubbornness. Some translators may retain the Hebrew metaphors as many translations have done. Others may convey the meaning by using a similar expression, for example, “they raised their shoulders [in stubbornness],” but this loses the picture of the ox. Still others may interpret the meaning explicitly without the metaphors. Thus, Bible en français courant translates with two adjectives, “obstinate and rebellious.” Good News Translation keeps a metaphor for the first expression, but not for the second one: “Hard-headed and stubborn.” The three-stage description here culminates in the people’s refusal to obey God, as is apparent in the translation of New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh: “They turned a defiant shoulder, stiffened their neck, and would not obey.”
Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Nehemiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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