Language-specific Insights

fell face down

In Gbaya, the notion of the large Goliath onto the ground in 1 Samuel 17:49 is emphasized with the ideophone rum, which refers to the collapse of a large animal or a person falling heavily.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

June F. Dickie reports this about a performance of the fight between David and Goliath in Hebrew (in: Verbum et Ecclesia 2021 ): “The text says that Goliath ‘fell on his face to the ground.’ In a performance of this story, the audience and actors physically saw Goliath’s body lying on the floor in front of David, making it appear as if Goliath was showing abeyance and serving David, a dramatic reversal of Goliath’s taunt in 1 Samuel 17:9. Such insights often only become apparent as one physically acts out the story. As Jeff Barker (2020) observed, ‘Great drama makes the unseen see-able.'”

widow

The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated as “widow” in English is translated in West Kewa as ona wasa or “woman shadow” (source: Karl J. Franklin in Notes on Translation 70/1978, pp. 13ff.) and in Newari as “husband already died ones” or “ones who have no husband” (source: Newari Back Translation).

In Cherokee the term is gender neutral and translates to “one who has lost someone.” (Source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 100)

The etymological meaning of the Hebrew almanah (אַלְמָנָה) is likely “pain, ache,” the Greek chéra (χήρα) is likely “to leave behind,” “abandon,” and the English widow (as well as related terms in languages such as Dutch, German, Sanskrit, Welsh, or Persian) is “to separate,” “divide” (source: Wiktionary).

See also widows.