Translation commentary on Luke 4:7

Exegesis:

su oun ean proskunēsēs enōpion emou ‘if you, then, will worship me.’ su at the beginning of the clause before the conjunction ean again is emphatic. oun indicates that the clause draws an inference from what precedes. This inference is that the devil is in a position to dictate the terms on which he is willing to do what he promised in v. 6, ‘to you I will give you all this power.’

proskuneō lit. ‘to prostrate oneself,’ hence ‘to worship,’ usually with dative (cf. Mt. 4.9) or accusative (as in v. 8), here with enōpion with genitive (for which cf. on 1.15), which sounds somewhat more solemn than v. 8.

estai sou pasa ‘it will all be yours’; subject is exousia understood. sou lit. ‘of you’ is predicate. pasa, grammatically going with the subject understood, modifies the predicate: it will be yours in its completeness, i.e. you will possess it completely.

Translation:

You will worship me and you shall worship the Lord (v. 8). If the receptor language provides possibilities of variation, two expressions should be chosen that have virtually the same meaning but a slightly different form. In several cases, however, such differentiation would result in a rendering of the first phrase that is unidiomatic rather than solemn, or changes the connexion between action and goal, e.g. by making it too indirect (as in “you will worship before me”, Moffatt), or is formally much more dissimilar than the two phrases are in the original. In such cases it is preferable to neglect the formal difference (cf. Revised Standard Version, New English Bible and many other versions). In several languages of Indonesia the term used refers to the gesture of worship or homage that is traditional in that region, i.e., the hands with fingertips raised to the chin or higher while the body is in a bowing, squatting or kneeling position. Another interesting rendering is, ‘to remember as holy’ (Tabasco Chontal).

It shall all be yours, or, ‘it shall belong to you completely’ (Bible de Jérusalem), ‘all this shall be your property/possession/part,’ ‘all this, you shall be its master’ (Toraja-Sa’dan).

Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.

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