adder / viper

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “adder,” “asp,” “viper,” or “serpent” in English is translated in Lambya as chipili or “puff adder “, a highly poisonous local snake species. (Source: project-specific notes in Paratext)

 

There are a large number of snake species belonging to the viper family in Israel. From the contexts it is possible in one or two places to identify the particular species, and it is possible that the various Hebrew words actually refer to particular species. However, associating the various words with the corresponding species is largely conjecture, even though based on careful deduction.

The most common vipers in Israel are the Palestinian Viper Viper palaestina, the Carpet Viper Echis coloratus, the Sand Viper Cerastes vipera, and the Horned Viper Cerastes cerastes cerastes. The Palestinian viper is the largest of these vipers and is found in a variety of habitats, from the woods of the north to the desert’s edge. Since this is the most inhabited area, people are bitten by this snake more than any other. The other four vipers mentioned are found in desert areas, but in slightly different habitats. The sand viper and the horned viper live in the sand, while the carpet viper lives in gravelly areas and among rocks. It often camouflages itself among dried leaves.

The desert vipers, when moving in sand, cannot move in the normal way, so they adopt a movement known as “sidewinding”. They do this by moving a coil sideways to a position in front of the head, then the snake moves its head and the front part of its body in the air, arching over the sand as far as it can reach before falling back onto the sand. Then it repeats the movement again. This is done at some speed, and the snake moves diagonally across the sand surprisingly quickly, although not as quickly as another snake moving normally. The parallel elongated S-shaped marks it leaves in the sand look as though it has moved in a series of jumps, since they seem not to be connected. It is generally accepted that this motion caused the biblical writers to refer to these snakes as “flying” (see flying fiery serpent).

Vipers are different from other snakes mainly in that they give birth to live offspring. The females retain their eggs in a special sac in their bodies, and when the eggs hatch the small snakes emerge from the mother. The larger vipers produce as many as sixty young snakes at a time, while the smaller sand vipers have smaller broods of about twelve to fifteen. This is what John the Baptist refers to by his well-known phrase “brood of vipers”.

The vipers have long hinged fangs located in the front of their mouths. These fangs fold back as they close their mouths. When striking, vipers have to open their mouths very wide in order to get these fangs into the required position.

The carpet viper (also known as the saw-scaled viper) was very numerous in biblical Israel, and in most other areas of its range (it is found in a broad continuous band from West Africa to South and Central Asia). It is likely that this was the saraf, a name derived from a finite verb meaning “to burn something,” a reference to the burning effect of its poisonous bite.

Vipers have the same basic significance in the Bible as other snakes, with one additional feature. Since the young are carried alive inside the female viper, which then gives birth to large numbers of well-developed young, all at the same time, the viper was associated with fertility. This was also their significance in the Egyptian and Canaanite religious systems.

Although vipers are found widely all over the world, not all languages distinguish them from other types of snake. As mentioned above, the carpet viper is found across Central Africa, from the west to east coasts, and into Central and South Asia. In these areas the name for this snake can be used in all the verses that refer to vipers. In southern Africa the Puff Adder Bitis arietans is probably the best equivalent.

In order to retain the relationship of the word saraf with the verb “to burn something,” translators often try to use expressions such as “vipers that burn [people]” or “fiery serpents”. This is only possible where the word used for “burn” means “to cause a wound with something hot.” One should not convey the idea of “a viper that sets people on fire” or “a viper that is burning.” Often it is better to use a phrase meaning simply “poisonous vipers”.

See also vipers, You brood of vipers!, and cobra.

pods

The Greek in Luke 15:16 that is translated as “pods” in English is translated in Elhomwe as makattha, a term given to all kind of peelings, which are given to pigs. (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

In the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) with Johannisbrotbaum-Schoten or “carob pods,” the kind of pods that likely would have been fed to pigs in Palestine.

The Carob Ceratonia siliqua is a very common tree found throughout the Mediterranean area and also in Arabia, Somalia, and Oman. It is native to Israel, where it was called charuv, according to Jewish religious writings of the first few centuries after Christ. Arabs call it kharrub.

In Bible times, as now, carob trees were found in the coastal plain and in the foothills (Shephelah) and on the eastern slopes of Galilee and Samaria. The carob seed pods are filled with a sweet moist pulp that was popular with poor people. The pods were also used to feed animals. That is probably the basis for Jesus’ statement that the prodigal boy in the parable looked hungrily at the carob keration (“pods”) that he had to feed to the pigs (Luke 15:16).

The carob tree is an evergreen with dark green leaves and many low leafy branches that hide a short trunk. The crown of the tree is round and may reach as high as 12 meters (40 feet). As is the case of the acacia, the date palm and the fig, the carob tree is a lonely representative of a large tropical family (in this case the pea sub-family Caesalpinioideae) that found its way into parts of Israel many millennia ago. The trees in this family are legumes, that is, they put nitrogen into the soil by way of little nodules on the roots. As the tree ages, the trunk be-comes twisted. In contrast to many other trees of the Bible lands, this one bears flowers in autumn, and the seed pods form the following summer. The mature pod is dark brown and about 15-25 centimeters (6-10 inches) in length and 2.5-3.5 centimeters (1-1.5 inches) broad.

If indeed the “pods” of Luke 15.16 were carob pods, it would certainly indicate that they were not considered high-class food. The tree is also called “St. John’s bread” on the belief that John the Baptist must have eaten these fruits when he lived in the desert of Judea. It is quite likely that John did eat carob pods. However, the suggestion that the “locusts” in Mark 1:6 were locust bean pods is not correct, since John probably did eat locusts, as some people in the world still do today. Ironically, carob pod pulp, which was once the “food of the poor” has become, in the last few years, an expensive “health food” in England and America! The word “carat” used in weighing diamonds comes from the Greek name of this tree, since the seeds were used as a standard for measurement. They typically weigh about two hundred milligrams.

Since the Greek word for carob does not actually occur in Luke 15:16, and keration could possibly refer to some other sort of pods, we cannot actually name a species here. If translators have a word for the edible seed pods of trees, they should use it. Otherwise they will have to use something like “fruit of wild trees.” In study notes translators may wish to refer to major language terms, for example, French caroube, Spanish algarrobo, Portuguese alfarroba, and Arabic kharrub.

Carob pods, photo by Gloria Suess

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

pomegranate

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “pomegranate” in English was translated in the 1900 Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) translation (a newer version was published in 2000) as kingmernarssûp or “big lingonberry.” “The Greenlandic word kingmernarssûp (modern kimmernarsuup) derives from kingmernaĸ (modern kimmernaq) ‘lingonberry’ (Vaccinium vitis-idaea ). The lingonberry is the fruit of a shrub from the heath family which is native to the boreal forest and tundra in the Arctic regions of North America, Europe, and Siberia, including western and southern Greenland. The term for ‘lingonberry’ has been modified with the suffix –ssuaĸ (modern –suaq ‘big’), resulting in a descriptive term meaning ‘big lingonberry.’ (Modern Greenlandic uses the Danish loanword granatæble.)” (Source: Lily Kahn & Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi in The Bible Translator 2019, p. 125ff.)

 

The pomegranate Punica granatum has been grown from ancient times across the Middle East over to Iran and into northern India. It is widely cultivated throughout India and the drier parts of Southeast Asia, Malaya, the East Indies, and tropical Africa. Pomegranates are now found throughout the warm parts of southern Europe and across North Africa and Asia all the way to Nepal. Images of pomegranate fruits have been found in Pharaoh’s temple in Karnak, Egypt, dating from around 1480 B.C. In classical Latin the species name was malum punium (apple of Puni) or malum granatum (seedy apple). This has influenced the common name for pomegranate in many languages (for example, German Granatapfel, “seed apple”). The English word “pomegranate” itself comes from Latin pomum (fruit, apple) via Old French. The Arabic rummân (رمان) passed into some other languages, including Portuguese romã.

The pomegranate is a small tree, growing to about 3-5 meters (10-17 feet) tall, with narrow, dark green leaves and many thorny branches. It has a lovely red flower. The fruit is a bit smaller than an orange and has a hard skin, which must be cut open to get at the tightly-packed pockets of seeds inside, each seed enclosed in a little bag of juicy pulp. The end of the fruit has a distinctive flower-like shape. The hard skin, which turns from green to red as it ripens, is used as a tanning agent, for medicine, and for ink. The seeds were sometimes made into wine. Pomegranate trees live up to two hundred years.

The pomegranate was one of the seven “special” foods mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8 that the Israelites would find in Canaan. The fruit was one of several brought back to the camp of the Israelites by the men who scouted out Canaan (Numbers 13:23). In Song of Songs 4:3 the bride of the king is said to have cheeks like halves of a pomegranate, a reference, probably, to their red color. The flower-shaped end of the pomegranate fruit made it an attractive decoration, for example on the fringe of the priests’ robes (Exodus 28:33f. and on the columns and furniture of the Temple (2 Kings 25:17).

In Jewish tradition the pomegranate stands for righteousness, because it is said to have 613 seeds, corresponding to the 613 commands of the Torah. For this reason and others many Jews eat pomegranates on the Jewish New Year Festival (Rosh Hashanah). Jewish tradition also holds that the pointed calyx of the pomegranate is the original “design” for a royal crown.
The Babylonians believed chewing pomegranate seeds before battle made them invincible. The Qur’an mentions pomegranates three times, twice as examples of the good things God creates, once as a fruit found in the Garden of Paradise.

The pomegranate is only recently being grown outside of the Mediterranean area. In West Africa it has not yet become a popular fruit. Where it is known at all, it is called rummân (from Arabic). In Song 4.3 and 6.7 the refer-ences to the pomegranate are rhetorical. There a cultural equivalent representing redness or beauty could be used. Elsewhere in the Bible transliteration is advised, following a major language. The word pome simply means “fruit,” so the basic word to transliterate from is granate (compare granada in Spanish). A possible expression is “garinada fruit.” The Latin phrase Punica granatum for pomegranate means the “grenade” of Punica (= Carthage), a city in present-day Tunisia. The Latin word granatum means “filled with many grains or seeds.” Reflecting this, Bambara of Guinea uses “karanati fruit.” One could also use the Hebrew rimmon as a base. Areas influenced by Arabic may find a word like rummân, for example, roomaanoo in Mandinka. A footnote could describe the fruit as similar to a guava, red and seedy.

Although the pomegranate has been introduced recently throughout Africa, it is not well-known, so the name will most likely need to be transliterated. As the English name is quite long, the translator is advised to translate from another source or look for ways to shorten it, such as “granata fruit.”

Pomegranate, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

donkey

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “donkey” in English was translated in the 1900 Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) translation (a newer version was published in 2000) as siutitôĸ or “‘something with big ears.” “[This] is based on the word siut ‘ear’ combined with the same suffix –tôĸ (-tooq).” (Source: Lily Kahn & Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi in The Bible Translator 2019, p. 125ff.)

 

These Hebrew and Greek words (with the exception of pōlos and hupozugion — see discussion below) all definitely refer to the Domestic Donkey equus asinus. However the different words do have slight semantic differences among them.

Chamor and onos are the generic words for donkey while ’athon (feminine gender) refers specifically to a saddle donkey or a donkey used for riding. A saddle donkey is usually a large strong female donkey the males are too difficult to control when they are near a female in heat. The Hebrew word is derived from a root that means “strong”.

‘Ayir refers to the young male or jack donkey (probably with an emphasis on its liveliness and the difficulty in controlling it since the Hebrew root means something like “frisky”).

Onarion means a young donkey of either sex. Some languages will have a special word for a young donkey. This will be appropriate for translating onarion.

The word hupozugion often translated “donkey,” actually indicates any beast of burden. Walter Bauer, the famous German New Testament scholar, has argued very convincingly that the animal referred to in Matthew 21:5 in the expression epi pōlon huion hupozugiou is the foal of a horse not a donkey (1953:220-229). In some languages it will be possible to express this in a way that does not designate a specific species of animal`, as in “beast of burden.”

Pōlos usually refers to a foal, that is a young horse, unless a word for donkey follows.

Donkeys are domestic animals belonging to the same family as the horse, but they are smaller and have longer ears. The donkey bred and used in the Middle East is the domesticated Nubian or Somali Wild Ass Equus Asinus africanus. In its original wild state this was a gray ass with pale, whitish belly and dark rings on the lower part of the legs. It was domesticated in Egypt as early as 2500 B.C. In its domesticated version, as a result of interbreeding with donkeys from Europe and Persia, the donkey came to be a variety of colors from dark brown, through light brown to the original gray and occasionally white. The Hebrew chamor comes from a root meaning “reddish brown.”

Donkeys are good pack animals being able to carry as much as the larger mule without the latter’s unpredictable moods. They also have great stamina and are easy to feed since they eat almost any available vegetation. Larger individual animals (usually females) are also often used for riding.

Donkeys were highly prized in biblical times especially females since they were suitable for packing and riding and had the potential for producing offspring. Donkeys were seen as man’s best friend in the animal kingdom. They were the common man’s means of transport and many ordinary families owned a donkey. They were used for plowing and for turning large millstones as well as a means of transport.

Today domestic donkeys are found all over savannah Africa the Middle East South and Central Asia Europe Latin America and Australia. They do not seem to be reared in rain forest or monsoon areas but they are nevertheless often known in these areas.

A donkey was considered to be a basic domestic requirement and thus the number of donkeys available was a means of measuring the relative prosperity of a society at any given time. While only powerful political or military people rode horses (which were usually owned by the state) the common people rode donkeys. This is the significance of the passage in Zechariah 9:9: the victorious king would return to the city riding a donkey thus identifying himself as a common Israelite rather than a victorious warlord.

In the majority of languages there is a local or a borrowed word for donkey. This is the obvious choice. In areas of Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea, West Africa, and other places, where donkeys are rare or unknown, the word from the dominant major language or trade language (for example, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, or Arabic) is often transliterated.

In most contexts ’athon should be translated by the equivalent of “female” donkey, but in some contexts riding donkey is better.

‘Ayir should be translated according to the specific context. In Genesis 32:15 the translation should definitely be the equivalent of “male donkey”, and probably also in Judges 10:4 and Judges 12:14. The significance of these latter passages is that female donkeys were the more normal choice of mount.

In Job 11:12 the emphasis is probably on the friskiness of the donkey, and the translation should be the equivalent of “He ties his young donkey to a grapevine, his frisky young ass to the best of the vines” (indicating a certain amount of irresponsibility, and perhaps extravagance).

In Job 11:12 and Zechariah 9:9 the obvious emphasis is on the youth of the donkey, so the equivalent of “colt”, “foal”, “young donkey”, and so on should be used.

Equus asinus (donkey), Wikimedia Commons

Source: All Creatures Great and Small: Living things in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

See also young donkey and wild ass.

ostrich

The Hebrew that is translated as “ostrich” in English was translated in the 1900 Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) translation (a newer version was published in 2000) as ĸatigagtûssatdlo or “back-like ones.” “The Greenlandic translation of the term for ‘ostriches’ is a descriptive term based on the noun ĸatigak (modern qatigak) ‘back,’ followed by the participial suffix –toĸ (modern –toq), and then the suffix –usaĸ (modern –usaq) ‘something resembling,’ the entire word meaning ‘some- thing resembling something that has a back.’” (Source: Lily Kahn & Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi in The Bible Translator 2019, p. 125ff.)

 

Both of the Hebrew words refer to the ostrich, and some scholars believe that they are really the singular and plural forms of the same word, written slightly differently as the result of a spelling mistake by a scribe. In ancient Hebrew writing they are very similar.

The word renanim may be related to a verb root that means “to call loudly”, a reference to the booming call of the male ostrich.

The Ostrich Struthio camelus is the largest living bird on earth. It cannot fly, because it has underdeveloped wings. It has a long neck and long legs and is about 2 meters (6 feet) tall. The head and neck are almost bald, being covered in short bristles. The male’s body is black with long white feathers on its wings. Its tail is white, gray, or light brown. The females are a uniform grayish brown.

Ostriches feed mainly on seeds, fallen fruit, and shoots and may occasionally eat a lizard or a frog. They also pick up and swallow small pebbles to aid their digestion. They live in small flocks of about twenty, of which four or five are males. They have very unusual nesting habits. The nest is nothing more than a large shallow hollow scraped in the sand. As many as ten females may lay their eggs in the one nest. Only one female and one male will incubate the eggs, however, with the female on the nest in the daytime, and the male taking over later in the afternoon. This is probably because the black male has better camouflage at night. Since ostriches breed at any time of the year, there are often three or four nests occupied by a flock.

During the day a female that is sitting on the eggs will leave the nest to feed. If any danger threatens, she will also leave the eggs and try to lure the threatening animal or human away from the nest. Since the eggs will keep warm in the hot sand the female may be away from the nest for a long time. Once the chickens are hatched, they follow the female that incubated them for a while, but females with chicks will fight among themselves until all the chicks of the flock are taken over by one dominant female. At any sign of danger, the chicks lie motionless under a bush, while the “mother” will try to lure the danger away.

Male ostriches make a series of deep booming hoots that can be heard great distances and which are often mistaken for the roar of a lion. (Fauna and Flora of the Bible is misleading in the statement that ostriches make a “hoarse complaining cry” at night.)

Even though there are only two certain references to ostriches in the Bible, both mention the heartless cruelty of this bird. This is probably a reference to the fact that a) most females lay eggs and then show no further interest in them, leaving them to another to incubate, b) the incubating female may leave the nest for long periods, and c) the hatched chicks are left to one female to care for, regardless of which other females laid the eggs or incubated them. Taken as a whole this seems to be contrary to all “natural motherly instincts.”

In savannah Africa where ostriches are well known there will be local words for ostrich. In Australasia the emu and cassowary are close equivalents, but a footnote may be needed, especially in the case of the cassowary, to indicate that the nesting habits of the ostrich are different, and since it lives in open savannah it can run much faster than the cassowary. Elsewhere a borrowing from the dominant language of the area may be necessary.

Job 39:13: This verse is difficult to make sense of in Hebrew. The general consensus among commentators is that it means something like “The wings of the ostrich beat rapidly [or, joyfully], but they certainly are not comparable to the wings of a stork.” The reference in Job 39:13 to the ostrich laughing at the horse and rider is a reference to the fact that ostriches can outrun horses. In some cultures this may need an explanatory footnote.

Source: All Creatures Great and Small: Living things in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

crocus

The Hebrew that is translated as “crocus” in English is translated in the Hausa Common Language Bible as fulawa ta ba da amfani or “useful flower,” “since Hausa culture traditionally sees no value in the purely visual aspect of flowers.” (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)

See also saffron crocus.

from the root of the snake will come forth an adder

The Hebrew that is translated as “from the root of the snake will come forth an adder” in English is translated in the Hausa Common Language Bible as irin ɗan da sarkin zai haifa, maciji ne wanda ya fi shi dafi or “the king will have a son like a snake which is yet more poisonous.” (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)

flying fiery serpent

The Hebrew that is translated as “flying serpent” in English is translated in Kamba as nzoka ya kĩko, referring to local cobras which can jump.

In Konso it is translated as “very poisonous snake,” which already suggests the “fiery.” (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin and Sam Wanyoike)

See also cobra.