Lloyd Peckham explains the Mairasi translation: “In secret stories, not knowable to women nor children, there was a magical fruit of life. If referred to vaguely, without specifying the specific ‘fruit,’ it can be an expression for eternity.”
The weight measure that is translated as “measure” or “seah” or with a modern equivalent in English is translated in the 1989 TsongaBIBELE Mahungu Lamanene into a measurement of what a traditional container can hold rather than weight: xirhundzu or xitshatshana (2) — “conical basket” or “small conical basket (2)” (for illustrations, see the containers on the left and right in the images from the same article below). (Source: The Bible Translator 1998, p. 215ff. )
In Hiligaynon, the traditional measurement unit gantang, app. 2 kilos or a third of a selah is used. (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
The phrase that is rendered in English versions as “land flowing with milk and honey” (“milk and syrup” in Goldingay [2018]) is translated into Afar as niqmatak tan baaxoy buqre kee lacah meqehiyya: “a blessed land good for fields and cattle.” (Source: Loren Bliese)
In the interconfessional Chichewa translation (publ. 1999) it is translated with the existing proverb dziko lamwanaalirenji or “a land of what (type of food) can the child cry for?” (i.e. there is more than enough to eat). (Source: Ernst Wendland in The Bible Translator 1981, p. 107 )
In Kwere it is “good/fertile land.” (Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The Hebrew word for “honey”, devash, is also used for syrup extracted from figs, dates, and grapes, or from certain types of palm tree. The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey” refers to a land that is fertile and thus rich in pasture, fruit, and the grain and flowers from which bees make honey. (Source: All Creatures Great and Small: Living things in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators) )
In Russian, the phrase молоко и мед (moloko i med) or “milk and honey” is widely used as an idiom in every-day life. (Source: Reznikov 2020, p. 67)
The Greek in Acts 1:8 that is translated in English as “to the ends of the earth” or similar is translated in Enlhet as “everywhere” because it would have had negative spiritual implication in the worldview of the native language speakers if translated more literally. (Source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 24ff. )
The Greek and Hebrew phrases that are often translated as “birds of the air” in English “refer to the undomesticated song birds or wild birds, to be distinguished in a number of languages from domesticated fowl. In Tzeltal these former are ‘field birds’.” (source: Bratcher / Nida)
Q’anjob’al also uses an established term for non-domesticated birds. Newberry and Kittie Cox (in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 91ff. ) explain: “Qʼanjobʼal has two distinct terms, one to identify domesticated birds and the other non-domesticated birds. The additional descriptive phrase ‘of the air’ seemed entirely misleading, for Qʼanjobʼal speakers had never heard of such creatures. Actually, of course, all that was necessary was the term for non-domesticated birds, for that is precisely the meaning of the Biblical expression.”
In Elhomwe they are just translated as “birds” or “birds of the bush” (i.e., wild birds) to “not give the impression that these are special type of birds.” (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Samson’s riddle in Judges 14:14 in the form of a Hebrew poem is translated in the TagalogMagandang Balita Biblia (rev. 2005) into a form of a traditional Tagalog riddle of two lines with internal rhymes (-kain and –kain; –kas and –bas) and an (almost) identical number of syllables (6+7, 7+7):
Mula sa kumakain ay lumabas ang pagkain;
at mula sa malakas, matamis ay lumabas.
It back-translates as:
“From the eater came out the food;
and from the strong, sweet came out”
The Greek that is translated in English as “humble (state of his) servant” or similar is translated in Peruvian Sign Language with the following signs where for “humility [is] expressed by face and gestures, downward body language indicating humility before God”:
Source: Marlon Winedt in The Bible Translator 2026, p. 90ff.
The phrase in John 4:35 that is translated as “the crops white (or: ripe) for harvest” in English is translated in Hiri Motu as “the crops are ripe and big and ready to eat.” The word for “ripe” hints at bananas and the word for “big” hints at sweet potatoes.
In Chokwe the white seed “mystified the reader (…) Ripe harvest-ready grains is ‘red,’ which in this land of few colour distinction is about the equivalent of ‘golden.’ To make send for the passage we felt justification in changing ‘white’ to ‘red.'” (Source: D. B. Long in The Bible Translator 1952, p. 87ff. )
