SIL Translator’s Notes on Romans 11:26

11:26a

And so: This phrase indicates that the full number of Gentiles must come in for all of Israel to be saved.

all Israel will be saved: This clause is passive. Some languages must use an active clause. For example:

⌊God⌋ will save all Israel

all Israel: This phrase probably refers to the people of Israel as a nation.

saved: This word refers to being rescued from something harmful or dangerous. Here it refers to rescue from God’s anger at the final judgment. See how you translated this word in 5:10 or 11:14.

11:26b

as it is written: This clause introduces quotes from Scripture. The verses he quoted were written hundreds of years before Paul wrote the letter to the Romans. In some languages a literal translation would wrongly indicate the words were written at the same time as Paul wrote here. If that is true in your language, indicate it was long before Paul wrote. For example:

as it was written ⌊long ago⌋

This clause refers to what was written in the Old Testament. Some languages must make that explicit to make that clear. For example:

As scripture says (Good News Translation)

This clause is passive. The prophet wrote what God told him to write. Some languages must use an active clause here. For example:

the prophet wrote ⌊long ago⌋
-or-
what God caused-to-be-written saying,
-or-
It is like it says in the Holy Book

See how you translated this clause in 1:17 or 11:8.

The Deliverer: This title refers to someone who would save others from danger. Here are other ways to translate this title:

The Savior (Good News Translation)
-or-
The one who rescues (New Living Translation (2004))

Since this is an Old Testament quote, you should not name Jesus here.

Zion: Zion is the name of the hill in Jerusalem southwest of the temple. In the Old Testament, Mount Zion was symbolic for God’s holy city, Jerusalem. See how you translated this word in 9:33.

11:26c

He will remove godlessness from Jacob: There is no conjunction to begin this clause. In some languages an “and” would be more natural. For example:

and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob (King James Version)

Or you may want to use a full stop instead of a comma at the end of 11:26b and start a new sentence here.

remove: There are two ways to interpret the Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as remove :

(1) It refers to removing something.

(Berean Standard Bible, Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Standard Bible, English Standard Version, God’s Word, NET Bible, Revised English Bible, New Century Version)

(2) It refers to turning aside something. For example:

turn…away (New International Version)

(New International Version, New American Bible, Revised Edition, New Living Translation (2004))

It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1), because it seems unlikely that Paul claimed here that Israel was mostly unaffected by ungodliness and God turned it aside to keep them that way.

godlessness: This word refers to doing or saying things that show no reverence or respect for God. Here are other ways to translate this word:

impiety
-or-
doing or saying things that dishonor/disrespect God

See how you translated this word in 1:18.

Jacob: Here this name is symbolic for his descendants, the Jews. For example:

Jacob’s descendants (Contemporary English Version)

© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

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