The Greek, Ge’ez, and Hebrew that is translated as “fox” in English is translated in Mam as “weasel.” Ron Ross explains: “Foxes is often a difficult concept to express in this part of the world. The Mayas don’t seem to know them. In the Mam project we finally put ‘weasel’ rather than ‘coyote,’ which were basically our choices.”
In Toraja-Sa’dan it is translated as sindallung or “civet cat.” H. van der Veen (in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 21 ff. ) explains: “This animal is a real chicken thief, and is a type of cat with a head resembling that of a fox.”
In Noongar, it is translated as mokiny or “dingo” (in Luke 9:58) (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang) and in Newari as “small jackal” (source: Newari Back Translation).
In Sümi Naga, the replacement of “fox” with “dog” was cited in 2026 as one of the reasons for the rejection of a new “Easy-to-Read” Bible in that language (see this article ).
In Garifuna the second person singular pronoun (“you” in English) has two forms. One is used in women’s speech and one in men’s speech. In the Garifuna Bible the form used in men’s speech is typically used, except when it’s clear that a woman is quoted or in Psalms where the women on the translation team insisted that the form used in women’s speech (buguya) would be used throughout the whole book.
Ronald Ross (in Omanson 2001, p. 375f.) tells the story: “Throughout most of the translation, [the distinctions between the different forms of the pronouns] presented no problem. Whenever the speaker in the text was perceived as a man, the male speech forms were used; and when a woman was speaking, the female speech forms were used. True, the women members of the translation team did object on occasion to the use of the male forms when the author (and narrator) of a book was unknown and the men translators had used the male speech forms as the default. Serious discord arose, however, during the translation of the Psalms because of their highly devotional nature and because throughout the book the psalmist is addressing God. The male translators had, predictably, used the male form to address God, and the male form to refer to the psalmist, even though women speakers of Garifuna never use those forms to address anyone. The women contended that they could not as women read the Psalms meaningfully if God and the psalmist were always addressed as if the readers were men. The men, of course, turned the argument around, claiming that neither could they read the Psalms comfortably if the reader was assumed to be a woman.
“Initially there seemed to be no way out of this impasse. However a solution was found in the ongoing evolution of the language. There is a strong propensity for male speech and female speech to merge in favor of the latter, so the few remaining male forms are gradually dying out. Moreover, male children learn female speech from their mothers and only shift to the male speech forms when they reach adolescence to avoid sounding effeminate. However they use the female form buguya when addressing their parents throughout life. So the women wielded two arguments: First, the general development of the language favored the increasing use of the female forms. Secondly, the female forms are less strange to the men than the male forms are to the women, because the men habitually use them during early childhood and continue to use them to address their parents even in adulthood. Therefore, the female pronominal forms prevailed and were adopted throughout the book of Psalms, though the male forms remained the default forms in the rest of the translation.”
The Hebrew in 1 Samuel 18:11 that is translated in English as “David eluded him twice” had to be translated more explicitly in San Blas Kuna. That translation first says that Saul threw the spear at him twice: “They couldn’t skip that step.”
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated in English as “Leviathan” is translated in Poqomchi’ as “monster crocodile” (source: Ronald Ross), in Kalanga as “a monster of the sea called Leviathan” (source: project-specific notes in Paratext), and in Hiligaynon as “the dragon Leviatan” (source: Hiligaynon Back Translation).
Scholars are divided in the details of the meaning of this word, but all are agreed that it refers to a monster that lives in water. The word seems to be related to a Hebrew root that means “to twist.” Some believe that the notion of livyathan is related to ancient Egyptian beliefs about a mythical monster crocodile that was thought to be responsible for the annual flooding of the Nile and for causing eclipses of the sun. The passages in Job 41:1 and Psalms 74:14 support this view. In Psalms 74:13 and 14 livyathan occurs in parallel with another word tannin, which refers to a monster that lives in the water. In Ezekiel 29:3tanim is described as having powerful jaws and scales. The similarity to a crocodile has been noted by many commentators.
Others relate this monster to Babylonian myths about the chaos dragon Tiamat. The Ugaritic texts refer to a similar monster called lotan, which is the Ugaritic form of livyathan. It seems possible that this is the reference in Isaiah 27:1. The probability is that the name is used in both senses in the Bible.
There is general agreement among Jewish scholars that tannin is the more generic word for “sea monster”, while behemoth and livyathan are the names of two of those monsters. This is reflected in 2 Esdras 6:49 and 52, where leviathan is clearly a proper name for one of these monsters.
Crocodiles are the largest of all reptiles. The species found in the Nile valley is the Nile Crocodile Crocodylus niloticus. In biblical times these crocodiles also lived in the larger rivers of the land of Israel, and another species lived in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia.
Crocodiles look like enormous lizards with large teeth, and they often reach more than 5 meters (16 feet) in length. Their skin is covered in thick fleshy scales. They live in rivers and in river estuaries and come out of the water onto land to sun themselves for long periods each day. When they are in the water they can stay submerged for ten minutes or more.
They feed on fish that they catch in the water, or lie in wait, wholly or partly submerged until some animal or person comes to drink. They then leap out of the water and seize their prey and throw or drag it into the water where they drown it. They then wedge the prey under a log or between rocks or reeds and tear large pieces from the carcass by seizing the flesh in their teeth and twisting themselves over and over until the flesh comes loose. They then swallow the meat without chewing it. In areas where these crocodiles live, people are killed every year by them.
The monster crocodile of the Egyptians, however, was not a real crocodile but a mythical one of gigantic proportions, which was associated with the annual flooding of the Nile River. It was believed to be so big that whenever it entered the Nile, it caused the river to overflow its banks.
Leviathan symbolized the Egyptian nation and probably its gods; it also symbolized the two mighty nations of Assyria and Babylon. Thus it symbolized the great enemies of Israel.
In most translations the word is transliterated from the Hebrew rather than translated, but the name by itself conveys little to the average reader. In languages where crocodiles are well known, the more meaningful expression “the giant crocodile Leviathan” can be used in the Job and Psalms passages. Then, in the Isaiah passage, where the text itself identifies Leviathan as a serpent (or reptile), the name can be used by itself. In some societies, where there are beliefs about mythical monster serpents or crocodiles associated with the flooding of rivers, the local name for the mythical monster can be used, with a footnote to indicate that in Hebrew the monster’s name is livyathan and that it represented the enemies of Israel.
The Hebrew in 2 Kings 2:14 that is translated in English as “(Where is) the God of Elijah” is difficult to translate in some Mayan languages. “If you say the God of Elijah, you are implying that he is not the God of Elisha. It has to be translated as something like, ‘Where is the power that God gave to Elijah.'”
The Hebrew that is translated in English as “my son” or “my child” was translated in Poqomchi’ as “you my son (as it were)” because “in many languages (including the Mayan ones), can only be said to one’s offspring.”
The Hebrew in 2 Kings 12:10 that is translated as “tied [the money] up in bags” was problematic in the Kaqchikel translation. Ron Ross explains: “The Kaqchikels wanted to have them put the money in baskets, which is what they carry things in, but they agreed to using bags if we said something like ‘they put the money in bags in order to give them to those in charge of the remodeling of the temple.'”
The Hebrew of Ezekiel 1:10 is typically translated in English as “Each living creature had four different faces: a human face in front, a lion’s face at the right, a bull’s face at the left, and an eagle’s face at the back.” Tzeltal has no words for left, right, front or back, so translation is “Each living creature had four different faces: on one side of their head they had a human face, on another they had a lion’s face, on another they had a bull’s face and on the last side they had an eagle’s face.” (Source: Ronald Ross in Omanson 2001, p. 361)
