Following are a number of back-translations of 1 Corinthians 7:10:
Uma: “To [you] relatives who are married, here is my command–but they aren’t my words, they are the Lord Yesus’ words: a woman who is married is not to separate from her husband.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “To the married couples I also have something to tell/command. And these words are not just from me but from our leader Isa Almasi. He said, a woman should not leave her husband.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Now as for you married couples, I also have a word for you. This is not just my advice to you, but rather it is a command of our Lord. It is: as for woman, she must not divorce her husband; and a man, he must not divorce his spouse. However, if there is a woman who has already divorced her husband, it is not possible that she get married again. It is possible for them to come back together.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “As for you also who are married, I have something to tell you that is not only my command but rather is the command of the Lord Jesus. A woman must not leave her husband.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Well now, to you believers who are married, this is what I am saying, and it’s not just I but the Lord who commanded this. It’s not permissible for the woman to separate-from/divorce her husband.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “I tell the people who already are married that the woman who has a husband should not separate from her husband. This word I tell you is not just my own word, rather the Lord Himself said this word about what I tell you to do.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
The Hebrew adonai in the Old Testament typically refers to God. The shorter adon (and in two cases in the book of Daniel the Aramaic mare [מָרֵא]) is also used to refer to God but more often for concepts like “master,” “owner,” etc. In English Bible translations all of those are translated with “Lord” if they refer to God.
In English Old Testament translations, as in Old Testament translations in many other languages, the use of Lord (or an equivalent term in other languages) is not to be confused with Lord (or the equivalent term with a different typographical display for other languages). While the former translates adonai, adon and mare, the latter is a translation for the tetragrammaton (YHWH) or the Name of God. See tetragrammaton (YHWH) and the article by Andy Warren-Rothlin in Noss / Houser, p. 618ff. for more information.
In the New Testament, the Greek term kurios has at least four different kinds of use:
referring to “God,” especially in Old Testament quotations,
meaning “master” or “owner,” especially in parables, etc.,
as a form of address (see for instance John 4:11: “Sir, you have no bucket”),
or, most often, referring to Jesus
In the first and fourth case, it is also translated as “Lord” in English.
Most languages naturally don’t have one word that covers all these meanings. According to Bratcher / Nida, “the alternatives are usually (1) a term which is an honorific title of respect for a high-ranking person and (2) a word meaning ‘boss’, ‘master’, or ‘chief.’ (…) and on the whole it has generally seemed better to employ a word of the second category, in order to emphasize the immediate personal relationship, and then by context to build into the word the prestigeful character, since its very association with Jesus Christ will tend to accomplish this purpose.”
When looking at the following list of back-translations of the terms that translators in the different languages have used for both kurios and adonai to refer to God and Jesus respectively, it might be helpful for English readers to recall the etymology of the English “Lord.” While this term might have gained an exalted meaning in the understanding of many, it actually comes from hlaford or “loaf-ward,” referring to the lord of the castle who was the keeper of the bread (source: Rosin 1956, p. 121).
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Following are some of the solutions that don’t rely on a different typographical display (see above):
Iyansi: Mwol. Mwol is traditionally used for the “chief of a group of communities and villages” with legal, temporal, and spiritual authority (versus the “mfum [the term used in other Bantu languages] which is used for the chief of one community of people in one village”). Mwol is also used for twins who are “treated as special children, highly honored, and taken care of like kings and queens.” (Source: Kividi Kikama in Greed / Kruger, p. 396ff.)
Binumarien: Karaambaia: “fight-leader” (Source: Oates 1995, p. 255)
Warlpiri: Warlaljamarri (owner or possessor of something — for more information tap or click here)
We have come to rely on another term which emphasizes God’s essential nature as YHWH, namely jukurrarnu (see tetragrammaton (YHWH)). This word is built on the same root jukurr– as is jukurrpa, ‘dreaming.’ Its basic meaning is ‘timelessness’ and it is used to describe physical features of the land which are viewed as always being there. Some speakers view jukurrarnu in terms of ‘history.’ In all Genesis references to YHWH we have used Kaatu Jukurrarnu. In all Mark passages where kurios refers to God and not specifically to Christ we have also used Kaatu Jukurrarnu.
New Testament references to Christ as kurios are handled differently. At one stage we experimented with the term Watirirririrri which refers to a ceremonial boss of highest rank who has the authority to instigate ceremonies. While adequately conveying the sense of Christ’s authority, there remained potential negative connotations relating to Warlpiri ceremonial life of which we might be unaware.
Here it is that the Holy Spirit led us to make a chance discovery. Transcribing the personal testimony of the local Warlpiri pastor, I noticed that he described how ‘my Warlaljamarri called and embraced me (to the faith)’. Warlaljamarri is based on the root warlalja which means variously ‘family, possessions, belongingness’. A warlaljamarri is the ‘owner’ or ‘possessor’ of something. While previously being aware of the ‘ownership’ aspect of warlaljamarri, this was the first time I had heard it applied spontaneously and naturally in a fashion which did justice to the entire concept of ‘Lordship’. Thus references to Christ as kurios are now being handled by Warlaljamarri.” (Source: Stephen Swartz, The Bible Translator 1985, p. 415ff. )
Mairasi: Onggoao Nem (“Throated One” — “Leader,” “Elder”) or Enggavot Nan (“Above-One”) (source: Enggavoter 2004)
Obolo: Okaan̄-ene (“Owner of person(s)”) (source: Enene Enene)
Lotha Naga: Opvui (“owner of house / field / cattle”) — since both “Lord” and YHWH are translated as Opvui there is an understanding that “Opvui Jesus is the same as the Opvui of the Old Testament”
Seediq: Tholang, loan word from Min Nan Chinese (the majority language in Taiwan) thâu-lâng (頭儂): “Master” (source: Covell 1998, p. 248)
Thai: phra’ phu pen cao (พระผู้เป็นเจ้า) (divine person who is lord) or ong(kh) cao nay (องค์เจ้านาย) (<divine classifier>-lord-boss) (source: Stephen Pattemore)
Arabic often uses different terms for adonai or kurios referring to God (al-rabb الرب) and kurios referring to Jesus (al-sayyid الـسـيـد). Al-rabb is also the term traditionally used in Arabic Christian-idiom translations for YHWH, and al-sayyid is an honorary term, similar to English “lord” or “sir” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin).
Tamil also uses different terms for adonai/kurios when referring to God and kurios when referring to Jesus. The former is Karttar கர்த்தர், a Sanskrit-derived term with the original meaning of “creator,” and the latter in Āṇṭavar ஆண்டவர், a Tamil term originally meaning “govern” or “reign” (source: Natarajan Subramani).
Burunge: Looimoo: “owner who owns everything” (in the Burunge Bible translation, this term is only used as a reference to Jesus and was originally used to refer to the traditional highest deity — source: Michael Endl in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 48)
Yagaria: Souve, originally “war lord” (source: Renck, p. 94)
Aguacateco: Ajcaw ske’j: “the one to whom we belong and who is above us” (source: Rita Peterson in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 49)
Konkomba: Tidindaan: “He who is the owner of the land and reigns over the people” (source: Lidorio 2007, p. 66)
Chichewa: AmbuyeAmbuye comes from the singular form Mbuye which is used to refer to: (1) someone who is a guardian or protector of someone or group of people — a grandparent who has founded a community or village; (2) someone who is a boss or master over a group of people or servants and has absolute control over them; (3) owner of something, be it a property, animals and people who are bound under his/her rule — for people this was mostly commonly used in the context of slaves and their owner. In short, Mbuye is someone who has some authorities over those who call him/her their “Mbuye.” Now, when the form Ambuye is used it will either be for honorific when used for singular or plural when referring to more than one person. When this term is used in reference to God, it is for respect to God as he is acknowledged as a guardian, protector, and ruler of everything. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation).
Hdi uses rveri (“lion”) as a title of respect and as such it regularly translates adon in the Old Testament. As an address, it’s most often with a possessive pronoun as in rvera ɗa (“my lion” = “my lord” or “sir”). So, for example, Genesis 15:2 (“O Lord God”) is Rvera ɗa Yawe (“My lion Yahweh”) or Ruth to Boaz in Ruth 2:13: “May I find your grace [lit. good-stomach] my lion.” This ties in nicely with the imagery of the Lord roaring like a lion (Hosea 11:10; Amos 3:8; Joel 3:16). Better still, this makes passages like Revelation 5:5 even richer when we read about rveri ma taba məndəra la Yuda, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”. In Revelation 19:16, Jesus is rveri ta ghəŋa rveriha “the lion above lions” (“lord of lords”). (Source: Drew Maust)
Law (2013, p. 97) writes about how the Ancient GreekSeptuagint‘s translation of the Hebrew adonai was used by the New Testament writers as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments: “Another case is the use of kurios referring to Jesus. For Yahweh (in English Bibles: ‘the Lord‘), the Septuagint uses kurios. Although the term kurios usually has to do with one’s authority over others, when the New Testament authors use this word from the Septuagint to refer to Jesus, they are making an extraordinary claim: Jesus of Nazareth is to be identified with Yahweh.”
Married here certainly means “those who have been married and remain in the married state.” Married in certain languages will be translated as “those who have a family.”
I give charge (Good News Bible‘s “I have a command”) is stronger than I say in verses 8 and 12. There is nothing in the verb give charge itself that would make it necessary to think that Paul is referring to a saying of Jesus, but the context strongly suggests that here Paul is quoting a teaching that is attributed to Jesus—in fact it is similar to that found in Mark 10.9, 12. In this case and in verse 12, the Lord is Jesus during his earthly life.
The phrase not I but the Lord is emphatic, even though it is an aside. The first half of the verse may be restructured as “This following command to the married comes from the Lord, not from me: ‘The wife should not separate from her husband.’ ”
Should not separate is literally “let (her) not leave” (see comments on 1 Cor. 7.2 for ways to translate third person imperatives). “Let” does not mean “allow,” but represents a third person command in English, “she must not leave.” Some scholars distinguish between: (1) temporary sexual abstinence, mentioned in verse 5; (2) separation, mentioned here, in verse 11a and in verse 15; and (3) divorce, mentioned in verses 11-13. In many modern societies divorce always involves a legal decision, and separation may require one too. However, in Jewish tradition and elsewhere in the Mediterranean world, this was not the case, so the distinction between (2) and (3) is not absolute. Even in the case of (1), it is mainly the phrase “for a season” that distinguishes it from (2) and (3). Separate and “divorce” (verse 11) are two different words in Greek. If these verses stood alone, they would suggest that Paul accepted the Jewish rule that a man could divorce (literally “let go,” “send away”) his wife, but a wife could not divorce her husband (this is still the case in Islamic countries). However, the following verses show that Paul, no doubt under the influence of Jesus’ teaching, does not make this distinction. Perhaps a translator could express the phrase should not separate from in an idiomatic way; for example, “must not take a different road from.”
Her husband is literally “a man” or “a husband,” but her is required in English both here and in the following verses (see the introduction to this section).
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Now I have a command for you who are married.
-or-
Now, you married ⌊believers⌋, this is what I command you to do:
7:10b (not I, but the Lord):
Actually, this command does not come from me; rather, it is what the Lord Jesus himself said ⌊when he was here on earth⌋.
-or-
—Actually the Lord Jesus himself commands this, not I ⌊alone⌋ —
7:10c A wife must not separate from her husband.
A married woman must not divorce/leave her husband.
-or-
You wives, you are not to go away from your husbands.
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
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