lamb

The term that is translated as “lamb” in English is typically translated as “offspring of a sheep” in Ixcatlán Mazatec since there is no specific word for “lamb.” Since this could distract readers with thoughts of God being the sheep when the “lamb” refers to Jesus the translation into Ixcatlán Mazatec chose “little (individual) sheep” for those cases. (Source: Robert Bascom)

In Dëne Súline the native term for “lamb” directly translated as “the young one of an evil little caribou.” To avoid the negative connotation, a loan word from the neighboring South Slavey was used. (Source: NCAM, p. 70)

For the Kasua translation, it took a long process to find the right term. Rachel Greco (in The PNG Experience) tells this story:

“To the Kasua people of Western Province, every four-legged animal is a pig. They call a horse a pig-horse, a cow, a pig-cow, and a sheep, a pig-sheep, because all of these animals have four legs, which is kopolo, or pig, in their language.

“When the translation team would translate the word, ‘sheep’ in the New Testament, they would translate it as ‘pig-sheep’. So when Jesus is referred to as the ‘Lamb,’ (John 1:29; Rev. 12:11; Rev. 17:14), they translated as ‘pig-sheep’ so that in John 1:29 it would read: ‘Behold, the pig-sheep of God.’

“When some members of the translation team attended the Translators Training Course, they had the opportunity to observe and study sheep for the first time. As they watched and learned more about the animals’ behavior, their understanding of these creatures—and God’s Word—rotated on its axis.

“Once during the course, Logan and Konni — the translation team’s helpers — were driving with the team to a Bible dedication when Amos, one of the team members, said passionately, ‘We can’t use the word kopolo in front of the word, ‘sheep’! Pigs know when they’re about to die and squeal and scream.’ The team had often watched villagers tie up pigs so they wouldn’t escape.

“’But,’ Amos said, ‘Jesus didn’t do that.’ The team had learned that sheep are quiet and still when death walks toward them. They had observed, as they translated the New Testament, the words of Isaiah 53 fulfilled: ‘Like a lamb led to the slaughter, he did not open his mouth.’ And now they understood what it meant. For this reason, the team decided not to put pig-sheep in the New Testament for the word ‘sheep,’ but used sheep-animal or, in their language, a:pele sipi.

“The Kasua translation team also chose to discard the word ‘pig’ before sheep because pigs are unclean animals to the Jews. The team knew that Jesus was called the ‘Lamb of God’ in the New Testament to show that he is unblemished and clean. Hopefully the Lord will open up the Kasua villagers’ eyes to these same truths about Jesus as they read of Him in their own language.”

See also sheep.

burnt-offering

The Hebrew olah (עֹלָה) originally means “that which goes up (in smoke).” English Bibles often translates it as “burnt-offering” or “whole burnt-offering,” focusing on the aspect of the complete burning of the offering.

The Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate Bibles translate it as holokautōma / holocautōsis (ὁλοκαύτωμα / ὁλοκαύτωσις) and holocaustum, respectively, meaning “wholly burnt.” While a form of this term is widely used in many Romance languages (Spanish: holocaustos, French: holocaustes, Italian: olocausti, Portuguese: holocaustos) and originally also in the Catholic tradition of English Bible translations, it is largely not used in English anymore today (the preface of the revised edition of the Catholic New American Bible of 2011: “There have been changes in vocabulary; for example, the term ‘holocaust’ is now normally reserved for the sacrilegious attempt to destroy the Jewish people by the Third Reich.”)

Since translation into Georgian was traditionally done on the basis of the Greek Septuagint, a transliteration of holokautōma was used as well, which was changed to a translation with the meaning of “burnt offering” when the Old Testament was retranslated in the 1980’s on the basis of the Hebrew text.

In the Koongo (Ki-manianga) translation by the Alliance Biblique de la R.D. Congo (publ. in 2015) olah is translated as “kill and offer sacrifice.” (Source: Anicet Bassilua)

The English translation of Everett Fox uses offering-up (similarly, the German translation by Buber-Rosenzweig has Darhöhung and the French translation by Chouraqui montée).

See also offering (qorban).

Translation commentary on Numbers 7:24 - 7:29

On the third day Eliab the son of Helon, the leader of the men of Zebulun …: Verses 24-29 are almost identical to verses 12-17 (see the comments there). For Eliab the son of Helon, the leader of the men of Zebulun, see 1.9. Instead of referring to “the tribe of Zebulun” (compare verse 12), the text here says the men of Zebulun (literally “the sons of Zebulun”), which may be rendered “the people of Zebulun” (New International Version) or simply “the Zebulunites” (New Jerusalem Bible).

There are no verbs corresponding to the verb was in the Hebrew of verses 25 and 29 (compare verse 17), which is in line with the list character of the text where there is a tendency to include a certain amount of condensation as the sequence progresses. By including the verb was in these verses, Revised Standard Version somewhat changes the text from a list to a narrative. The Revised Standard Version rendering of verses 24-29 could be adjusted and cast into a list as follows:

24 On the third day: Eliab the son of Helon, the leader of the people of Zebulun.
25 His offering:
one silver bowl (weight: a hundred and thirty shekels),
one silver basin (weight: seventy shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary),
both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a cereal offering;
26 one golden bowl (weight: ten shekels),
full of incense;
27 one young bull, one ram, one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;
28 one male goat for a sin offering;
29 and for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five male goats, and five male lambs a year old.
The offering of Eliab the son of Helon.

This model could be used for the other eleven paragraphs in verses 12-83. By using it, the form calls attention to its function as an official record or list, even though it occurs within the context of a narrative report. However, in some languages a verb meaning “offer” may still be needed in connection with each leader (for example, verses 24-25a may be rendered “On the third day Eliab the son of Helon, the leader of the people of Zebulun, 25 offered these things:…”). In other languages there may be some type of discourse marker or technical term that immediately signals the genre of such a listing of items. In any case, the same discourse genre should be used in translation if one is available in the target language.

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 .