grain

The Greek and Hebrew that is translated in English as “grain” (or: “corn”) is translated in Kui as “(unthreshed) rice.” Helen Evans (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. ) explains: “Padddy [unthreshed rice] is the main crop of the country and rice the staple diet of the people, besides which [grain] is unknown and there is no word for it, and it seemed to us that paddy and rice in the mind of the Kui people stood for all that corn meant to the Jews.” “Paddy” is also the translation in Pa’o Karen (source: Gordon Luce in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 153f. ).

Other translations include: “wheat” (Teutila Cuicatec), “corn” (Lalana Chinantec), “things to eat” (Morelos Nahuatl), “grass corn” (wheat) (Chichimeca-Jonaz) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), or ntimumma lujia / “seeds for food” (Lokạạ — “since Lokạạ does not have specific terms for maize and rice that can be described as grains”) (source: J.A. Naudé, C.L. Miller Naudé, J.O. Obono in Acta Theologica 43/2, 2023, p. 129ff. )

inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (Num 20:5)

Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)

The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).

For this verse, the Jarai and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the exclusive pronoun, excluding Moses.

Translation commentary on Numbers 20:5

And why have you made us come up out of Egypt, to bring us to this evil place?: This is another rhetorical question. Here the Israelites complain that Moses and Aaron have brought them from Egypt to a horrible place. Instead of the literal expression evil place, New Revised Standard Version and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh have “wretched place.” The rendering for evil should not imply negative personal morality here. Good News Translation makes explicit what this phrase means by saying “miserable place where nothing will grow.”

It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates: The Hebrew word for grain is literally “seed,” referring to cereal crops, such as wheat and barley, in this context. For suggestions on how to render grain, see the comments on 18.12. For figs and pomegranates, see 13.23. In some languages it will be more natural to mention what the vines produce, so Good News Translation says “grapes” (see the comments on 6.4).

And there is no water to drink: See verse 2.

Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .