The Hebrew that is translated into English as “moving (or: hovering) over the (sur)face of the waters” is translated into Ebira as “(the spirit of God) stayed above the water doing NANANA [ideophone].” (Source: Rob Koops)
In Bari it is translated with bibirto, “which is used of a bird hovering over its nest or fluttering round a bunch of ripe bananas.” (Source: Source: P. Guillebaud in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 189ff.)
In Kutu it is translated as “spreading over the water” and in Nyamwezi as ku’elela: “to circle around slowly over water, without touching it.” In Kwere it is translated with katanda, which carries the meaning of being ‘spread out’ over the water as one would spread a blanket out over a bed. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
“It was interesting to find how similar some of the Hebrew ways of expression are to Bari idiom. (…) [For instance], in Genesis 32:20 Hebrew uses the expression ‘I will cover his face’ for ‘to appease,’ and Bari speaks of ‘covering the eyes.’ Gifts of appeasement are rapesi ti konyen, ‘coverings of the eyes.’”
“It was interesting to find how similar some of the Hebrew ways of expression are to Bari idiom. (…) [For instance], in Genesis 49:14 (‘Issachar is a strong(-boned) donkey’) Hebrew literally has ‘a bony donkey.’ In English this would convey the opposite meaning, as we associate ‘bony’ with ‘thin’; but when we came to translate this, Daniele [the language assistant] told me that Bari says ‘You are a man with bones,’ or ‘You have ribs,’ meaning that you are strong. So it seems that it is the bones and ribs in Bari which denote strength, as seems to be the case in Hebrew, rather than the muscles, as in English.” (Source: P. Guillebaud in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 189ff. )
The Samaritan Pentateuch reads this as “ass of sojourners” ( חמר גרים ) or more probably “castrated ass,” which is the meaning that the New English Bible (1961/1970) follows with “gelded ass.” (Source: Jan de Waard in The Bible Translator 1974, p. 107ff. )
“It was interesting to find how similar some of the Hebrew ways of expression are to Bari idiom. (…) [For instance], in Genesis 50:21 (‘Joseph spoke kindly to them’ in English) Bari follows Hebrew in saying that he spoke ‘to their hearts'”
“In Genesis 29:15, the verse speaks of the ‘wages’ Laban should have paid Jacob, but in Bari the ordinary word for wages cannot be used, as there is no question of hire between relatives. The reward for work done is called doket, ‘gift’, or yariet, ‘help’.”
“In Genesis 31:15, Rachel and Leah complain that their father has been using up ‘the money given for us’. in Bari a phrase for dowry was used and (…) a phrase that is often heard, that ‘he has eaten our dowry.’ This quite often happens to a girl who is in the process of betrothal; if her father is unscrupulous he will arrange a marriage and receive and use up the dowry without giving the girl a proper chance to refuse, unless she is able to repay the money herself. (…) This parallel does not go the whole way, I know, but the idea behind the complaint is similar and very real in Bari.”
The Hebrew term that is typically translated as “wrath” in English is translated in Bari as “to break out.” (“The sort of anger that bursts out as bees from a hive against an intruder, the sort that doesn’t stop to ask questions but rushes into the fight.”)
The Hebrew term that is typically translated as “rest” in English is translated in Bari as “stand.” P. Guillebaud (in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 189ff. ) explains: “The normal word for ‘rest,’ yukan, which had been used originally had to be rejected, because, as [the language assistant] Daniele pointed out, it also means taking a rest or ‘breather,’ and so implies the resumption of work after a pause. As the point here is the cessation of work, we had to use a different term altogether, literally ‘God stood from work.’ (In Exod. 31:17 God is said to have ‘rested’ and to have ‘refreshed himself’ after the labours of creation.)”
In Orma it is translated as “God removed his hand.” George Payton explains: “We were translating Genesis, and we came to the verse in 2:2 where God ‘rested’ from the work of creating. Of course we did not want to communicate that God was tired from that work, as the English suggests. So I asked my translator, ‘When you finish working in your field preparing it before the rainy season and you have done all you can, there is nothing more you can do until it rains. What would you say that you have done in relation to the work? Finished? Stopped? Or something else?’ He said, ‘I would say that I removed my hand from that work, meaning it was finished and I am done with it.’ In 2:2 we used what he said and rendered the verse ‘On the 7th day God removed his hand from all the work that he had done.'”