The Hebrew that is translated as “lime” in English is translated in Bura-Pabir as pinju or “ashes,” since lime is not known in that culture. (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
Language-specific Insights
snow (color)
The Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic that is translated in English as “(as white as) snow” is translated in San Miguel El Grande Mixtec as “(as white as) volcano frost,” the only white kind of frost that is known in that language (source: Nida 1947, p. 160.). Likewise, it is translated in Chichewa as matalala or “hail stones,” since “hail in Central Africa, when it occurs, is also white” (source: Wendland 1987, p. 72).
In Obolo it is translated as abalara: “white cloth” (source: Enene Enene), in Bambam and Bura-Pabir as “like the white of cotton” (source: Phil Campbell in Kroneman 2004, p. 500 and Andy Warren-Rothlin), in Muna as “white like cotton flowers” (source: René van den Berg), in Sharanahua as “like fresh Yuca root” (source: Holzhauen / Riderer 2010, p. 72), in Tagbanwa as “white like just broken waves” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation), in Chitonga as “as the cattle egret ” (source: Wendland 1987, p. 130), in Nabak as “white as a white cockatoo ” (source: Grace Fabian ), in Cerma “white like the full moon,” except in Psalm 51:7 where the Cerma translators chose “wash me with water until I shine” (source: Andrea Suter in Holzhauen / Riderer 2010, p. 36), and in Elhomwe as cotton or ntuura / “ash” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext).
In Gbaya, in most cases an ideophone (term that expresses what is perceived by the five senses) is employed to depict strong intense whiteness (either ndáká-ndáká or kpúŋ-kpúŋ are used for the ideophones), sometimes in combination with “cotton.” Interestingly, for Rev. 1:14 where the color of the hair of the “Son of Man” is described, the use of cotton was questioned since it “would create the unpleasant image of an untidy person with disheveled hair or of a mourner with unkempt appearance.” It was eventually used, but only with a footnote that gives additional information by mentioning the French loan word neige for “snow.” In the two cases where the color white refers to the color of the skin of leprosy (Numbers 12:10 and 2 Kings 5:27), the image of hail is used in the first to describe the pale white of leprous skin, while the ideophone ndáká-ndáká is used for dramatic effect in the second. (Source: Philip Noss)
See also snow, frost, cotton, teeth are like a flock of ewes, many-colored robes / white, very white, and this devotion on YouVersion .
in you . . . shall be blessed
The Hebrew in Genesis 12:3 that is translated as “in you (all the families of the earth) shall be blessed” or similar in English is translated in Bura-Pabir as “(all the families of the earth) will bless themselves with your name.” (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
altar
The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that is translated as “altar” in English is translated in a number of ways:
- Obolo: ntook or “raised structure for keeping utensils (esp. sacrifice)” (source: Enene Enene)
- Muna: medha kaefoampe’a or “offering table” (source: René van den Berg)
- Luchazi: muytula or “the place where one sets the burden down”/”the place where the life is laid down” (source: E. Pearson in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 160ff. )
- Tzotzil: “where they place God’s gifts” (source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation, March 1965, p. 2ff.)
- Tsafiki: “table for giving to God” (source: Bruce Moore in Notes on Translation 1/1992, p. 1ff.)
- Noongar: karla-kooranyi or “sacred fire” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
- Uma: “offering-burning table” (source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “place for sacrificing” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “burning-place” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
- Tibetan: mchod khri (མཆོད་ཁྲི།) or “offering throne” (source: gSungrab website )
- Bura-Pabir: “sacrifice mound” (source: Andy Warrren-Rothlin)
- Kalanga: “fireplace of sacrifice” (source: project-specific notes in Paratext)
- Cherokee: “fire nurturing place” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 26) (note that the Jewish priest is “fire feeder” in Cherokee)
The Ignaciano translators decided to translate the difficult term in that language according to the focus of each New Testament passage in which the word appears (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight
Willis Ott (in Notes on Translation 88/1982, p. 18ff.) explains:
- Matt. 5:23,24: “When you take your offering to God, and arriving, you remember…, do not offer your gift yet. First go to your brother…Then it is fitting to return and offer your offering to God.” (The focus is on improving relationships with people before attempting to improve a relationship with God, so the means of offering, the altar, is not focal.)
- Matt. 23:18 (19,20): “You also teach erroneously: ‘If someone makes a promise, swearing by the offering-place/table, he is not guilty if he should break the promise. But if he swears by the gift that he put on the offering-place/table, he will be guilty if he breaks the promise.'”
- Luke 1:11: “…to the right side of the table where they burn incense.”
- Luke 11.51. “…the one they killed in front of the temple (or the temple enclosure).” (The focus is on location, with overtones on: “their crime was all the more heinous for killing him there”.)
- Rom. 11:3: “Lord, they have killed all my fellow prophets that spoke for you. They do not want anyone to give offerings to you in worship.” (The focus is on the people’s rejection of religion, with God as the object of worship.)
- 1Cor. 9:13 (10:18): “Remember that those that attend the temple have rights to eat the foods that people bring as offerings to God. They have rights to the meat that the people offer.” (The focus is on the right of priests to the offered food.)
- Heb. 7:13: “This one of whom we are talking is from another clan. No one from that clan was ever a priest.” (The focus in on the legitimacy of this priest’s vocation.)
- Jas. 2:21: “Remember our ancestor Abraham, when God tested him by asking him to give him his son by death. Abraham was to the point of stabbing/killing his son, thus proving his obedience.” (The focus is on the sacrifice as a demonstration of faith/obedience.)
- Rev. 6:9 (8:3,5; 9:13; 14:18; 16:7): “I saw the souls of them that…They were under the table that holds God’s fire/coals.” (This keeps the concepts of: furniture, receptacle for keeping fire, and location near God.)
- Rev. 11:1: “Go to the temple, Measure the building and the inside enclosure (the outside is contrasted in v. 2). Measure the burning place for offered animals. Then count the people who are worshiping there.” (This altar is probably the brazen altar in a temple on earth, since people are worshiping there and since outside this area conquerors are allowed to subjugate for a certain time.)
See also altar (Acts 17:23).
In the Hebraic English translation of Everett Fox it is translated as slaughter-site and likewise in the German translation by Buber / Rosenzweig as Schlachtstatt.
toward the Negeb
The Hebrew in Genesis 12:9 that is translated as “toward the Negeb” or similar in English is translated in Bura-Pabir as “toward the south.” (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
Passover
The Hebrew and Greek pesach/pascha that is typically translated in English as “Passover” (see below) is translated in a variety of descriptive ways of various aspects of the Jewish festival. (Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight):
- Ojitlán Chinantec: “the feast of the passing by of God’s angel”
- Lalana Chinantec: “the day would come which is called Passover, when the Israel people remember how they went out of the land of Egypt”
- Huehuetla Tepehua: “the celebration when they ate their sheep”
- Umiray Dumaget Agta: “the celebration of the day of their being brought out of bondage”
(source for this and above: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.) - Obolo: ijọk Iraraka — “Festival of Passing” (source: Enene Enene)
- Guhu-Samane: “special day of sparing” (source: Ernest Richert in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 198ff. )
- Yakan: “The festival of the Isra’il tribe which they call For-Remembering” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Wolof: “Festival of the day of Salvation” (“the term ‘pass over’ brings up the image of a person’s crossing over a chasm after death”) (source: Marilyn Escher)
- Bura-Pabir: vir kucelir fəlɓəla kəi — “time-of happiness-of jumping-over house”
- Berom: Nzem Gyilsit Nelɔ — “Festival-of jumping-of houses”
- Nigerian Fulfulde: Humto Ƴaɓɓitaaki / Humto Sakkinki — “Festival-of passing-over”
- Hausa: Bikin Ƙetarewa — “Festival-of going-over” (source for this and three above: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
- Jula: “Feast of end of slavery” (source: Fritz Goerling)
- Bafanji: laiŋzieʼ — “pass-jump over” (source: Cameron Hamm)
- Tiéyaxo Bozo / Jenaama Bozo: “Salvation/Rescue (religious) feast” (source: Marko Hakkola)
- Sabaot: Saakweetaab Keeytaayeet — “Festival of Passing-by” (source: Iver Larsen)
- Language spoken in India and Bangladesh: “Festival of avoidance”
- Vlax Romani: o ghes o baro le Nakhimasko — “the Day of the Passing”
- Saint Lucian Creole: Fèt Délivwans — “Feast of Deliverance” (source: David Frank)
- Finnish: pääsiäinen (“The term is very probably coined during the NT translation process around 1520-1530. It is connected to a multivalent verb päästä and as such refers either to the Exodus (päästä meaning “to get away [from Egypt]”) or to the end of the Lent [päästä referring to get relieved from the limitations in diet]. The later explanation being far more probable than the first.”)
- Northern Sami: beas’sážat (“Coined following the model in Finnish. The Sami verb is beassat and behaves partly like the Finnish one. Many Christian key terms are either borrowed from Finnish or coined following the Finnish example.”)
- Estonian: ülestõusmispüha — “holiday/Sunday of the resurrection” — or lihavõttepüha — “holiday/Sunday of returning of meat”
- Karelian: äijüpäivü — “the great day” (“Here one can hear the influence of the Eastern Christianity, but not directly Russian as language, because the Russian term is Пасха/Pasha or Воскресение Христово/Voskresenie Hristovo, ‘[the day of] the resurrection of Christ,’ but the week before Easter is called as the great week.”) (Source for this and three above: Seppo Sipilä)
- Russian (for Russian speaking Muslims): праздник Освобождения/prazdnik Osvobozhdeniya — “Festival of-liberation” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
- Kono: laaŋumɛ̃ɛ̃ or “skip over the person” (provisional term). Alesha Hagemeyer explains in this blog post that laaŋumɛ̃ɛ̃ is a play on the term laaɲámɛ̃ɛ̃ or “to skip over the water” which is traditionally used for the sacrifice of a sheep or a goat after the death of a family member. That term literally means “to skip over the water” so that “their loved one will pass over the water and enter the presence of God”
- Chagatai (a precursor language of both Uzbek and Uighur): faṭīr, derived from the Arabic word fiṭr for the holiday celebrated by Muslims after fasting in Ramadan (ʿĪd al-Fiṭr / عيد الفطر) (source: F. Erbay and F.N. Küçükballı in Acta Theologica 2025 45/2, p. 133ff. )
- Low German: Osterfest “Easter” (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006)
- Spanish Sign Language: pass through + miracle (source: John Elwode in The Bible Translator 2008, p. 78ff. )
“Passover” in Spanish Sign Language, source: Sociedad Bíblica de España - English: Passover (term coined by William Tyndale that both replicates the sound of the Hebrew original pesah — פסח as well as part of the meaning: “passing over” the houses of the Israelites in Egypt) — oddly, the English Authorized Version (King James Version) translates the occurrence in Acts 12:4 as Easter
Many Romance languages follow the tradition from Latin that has one term for both “Easter” and “Passover” (pascha). Portuguese uses Páscoa for both, Italian uses Pascha, and French has Pâque for “Passover” and the identically pronounced Pâques for “Easter.”
In languages in francophone and lusophone (Portuguese speaking) Africa, indigenous languages typically use the Romance word for “Easter” as a loanword and often transliterate pesach/pascha. In Kinyarwanda and Rundi Pasika is used, in Swahili and Congo Swahili Pasaka, and in Lingala Pasika. In some cases, the transliteration of “Passover” is derived from the European language, such as Umbundu’s Pascoa (from Portuguese) and Bulu’s Pak (from French). In languages that use Pak or similar for both “Passover” and “Easter” (such as Adioukrou), the identical spelling “serves to reinforce the idea that this is one celebration, not two distinct ones” (source: Hill 2006).
As John Ellingworth (in The Bible Translator 1980, p 445f. ) points out “in most contexts only the presence or absence of the definite article distinguishes them [in French la pâque for Passover and Pâques for Easter]. Since most African languages do not have definite articles, there remains no way to distinguish between the two terms where the general population has borrowed the word for Easter and the Bible translators have borrowed the word for Passover to use in their translation. Some even consider the references to [Passover] before the death of Christ as prophetic!”
See also this devotion on YouVersion .
Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Passover .
steadfast love
The Hebrew that is translated as “steadfast love,” “lovingkindness” (Goldingay 2018: “commitment”) or similar in English is translated in a number of ways:
- Vidunda: “love of enduring” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
- Bura-Pabir: “love which cannot be-changed” (hyirkur na a palidzi wa)
- Hausa Common Language Bible “his love without changing” (kaunarsa marar canjawa) (source for this and above: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
- Elhomwe: “love that does not finish” (echikondi yoohisintheya) (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
- Nyamwezi: chelu, combining “love,” “faithfulness,” “loyalty,” and “kindness” (source: James Lundeen)
- Newari: dayāmāyā (दयामाया), a compound word made from two Sanskrit-derived terms: dayā (दया) or “compassion, mercy, kindness” and māyā (माया) or “love, affection” (source: Newari Back Translation)
In Pijin tinghevi long or “think heavy about” is used. “The Pijin expression ‘think heavy about’ is very much within the domain of committed relationships. The relationship between father and child, husband and wife, God and His people. There is a very strong element of ‘loyalty’ in this expression.” (Source: Bob Carter)
In Latvian the term žēlastība is used both for “steadfast love” and grace.
In a number of languages, the terms for for “steadfast love” and mercy are used interchangeably.
covet
The Hebrew and Greek that is typically translated as “covet” in English is translated as “bulge your eyes over what is someone else’s” in Isthmus Zapotec (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), in Bura-Pabir with ngguka or “have strong desire for” which differentiates from silka or “jealous,” which refers not to one’s jealous attitude to one’s neighbor (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin), and in Newari´as “cause your eye to go to” (source: Newari Back Translation).
See also greed / covetousness.
