כִּ֣י יֶֽחֶטְאוּ־לָ֗ךְ כִּ֣י אֵ֤ין אָדָם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹא־יֶחֱטָ֔א וְאָנַפְתָּ֣ בָ֔ם וּנְתַתָּ֖ם לִפְנֵ֣י אוֹיֵ֑ב וְשָׁב֤וּם שֹֽׁבֵיהֶם֙ אֶל־אֶ֣רֶץ הָאוֹיֵ֔ב רְחוֹקָ֖ה א֥וֹ קְרוֹבָֽה׃
46“If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near,
The Hebrew, Greek and Latin that is translated as “(was or became) angry” in English is translated in Kwere as “saw anger.” In Kwere, emotions are always paired with sensory verbs (seeing or smelling or hearing). (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
In Bariai it is “to have grumbling interiors” (source: Bariai Back Translation).
See also anger and feel (terror, pain, suffering, anxiety).
The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is typically translated as “sin” in English has a wide variety of translations.
The Greek ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō) carries the original verbatim meaning of “miss the mark” and likewise, many translations contain the “connotation of moral responsibility.”
In Shipibo-Conibo the term is hocha. Nida (1952, p. 149) tells the story of its choosing: “In some instances a native expression for sin includes many connotations, and its full meaning must be completely understood before one ever attempts to use it. This was true, for example, of the term hocha first proposed by Shipibo-Conibo natives as an equivalent for ‘sin.’ The term seemed quite all right until one day the translator heard a girl say after having broken a little pottery jar that she was guilty of ‘hocha.’ Breaking such a little jar scarcely seemed to be sin. However, the Shipibos insisted that hocha was really sin, and they explained more fully the meaning of the word. It could be used of breaking a jar, but only if the jar belonged to someone else. Hocha was nothing more nor less than destroying the possessions of another, but the meaning did not stop with purely material possessions. In their belief God owns the world and all that is in it. Anyone who destroys the work and plan of God is guilty of hocha. Hence the murderer is of all men most guilty of hocha, for he has destroyed God’s most important possession in the world, namely, man. Any destructive and malevolent spirit is hocha, for it is antagonistic and harmful to God’s creation. Rather than being a feeble word for some accidental event, this word for sin turned out to be exceedingly rich in meaning and laid a foundation for the full presentation of the redemptive act of God.”
In Warao it is translated as “bad obojona.” Obojona is a term that “includes the concepts of consciousness, will, attitude, attention and a few other miscellaneous notions.” (Source: Henry Osborn in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 74ff. ). See other occurrences of Obojona in the Warao New Testament.
Martin Ehrensvärd, one of the translators for the Danish Bibelen 2020, comments on the translation of this term: “We would explain terms, such that e.g. sin often became ‘doing what God does not want’ or ‘breaking God’s law’, ‘letting God down’, ‘disrespecting God’, ‘doing evil’, ‘acting stupidly’, ‘becoming guilty’. Now why couldn’t we just use the word sin? Well, sin in contemporary Danish, outside of the church, is mostly used about things such as delicious but unhealthy foods. Exquisite cakes and chocolates are what a sin is today.” (Source: Ehrensvärd in HIPHIL Novum 8/2023, p. 81ff. )
See also sinner.
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.
Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”
In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.
Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)
In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”
In Dutch, Afrikaans, Gronings, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.
See also formal pronoun: disciples addressing Jesus, female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.
The Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ge’ez, and Latin that is translated as “enemy” or “foe” in English is translated in the Hausa Common Language Bible as “friends of front,” i.e., the person standing opposite you in a battle (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin) and in Apinayé as “person next to one” (source: Patricia Ham in Notes on Translation, August 1965, p. 2).
In North Alaskan Inupiatun it is translated with a term that implies that it’s not just someone who hates you, but one who wants to do you harm (Source: Robert Bascom), in Tarok as ukpa ìkum or “companion in war/fighting,” and in Ikwere as nye irno m or “person who hates me” (source for this and one above: Chuck and Karen Tessaro in this newsletter ).
In Cherokee it is either translated as “the one(s) who reprimand(s) you” or “the one(s) feared.” (Source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 47)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of 1 Kings 8:46:
Verses 46-51 present a seventh and final situation in which God’s people may turn to him in prayer. Such a situation of exile is threatened in Deut 28.36-37 if the people disobey God. Verses 46-48 in Hebrew contain a repeated play on the verbs shabah (“to carry captive”) and shub (“to repent/turn”). The verb shub in different forms in Hebrew is translated “lay it [to heart]” (verse 47) and “repent” (verses 47 and 48).
This verse in Hebrew begins a long conditional sentence. Verses 46-48 express the “if” part of this long sentence. Verses 49-51 form the concluding “then” part of the conditional sentence. In addition to this long, complex sentence, verse 46 contains the parenthetical comment for there is no man who does not sin. It will probably be necessary in many languages to restructure the form of these verses for the sake of clarity.
They sin against thee: Verse 46 begins with the third person plural verb sin, but the subject of the verb, which is found in verse 44, is left implicit here. Good News Translation makes the subject explicit with “your people.” Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente says “the Israelites.”
For there is no man who does not sin: In this context the words no man may be translated “no human being” (Nouvelle Bible Segond) or simply “no one” (Good News Translation) since the focus is not on men in contrast to women but rather on people in contrast to God.
They are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near: These words refer to a future exile. The passive construction here may be made active. Since the enemy is in view, it will be logical to make it the subject; for example, Contemporary English Version says “their enemies drag them away to foreign countries.”
Because of the parenthetical nature of the words between dashes in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, this verse may have to be restructured in certain languages. One possible model is:
• There is no person on earth who does not commit sin. So when your people do sin and make you angry, you allow their enemies to overcome them and take them as captives to another land, which may be near or far away.
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
8:46a When they sin against You—for there is no one who does not sin—
“Your people will sin against you. For there is no person/human being who does not sin.
-or-
“⌊In days to come⌋, your people will do what is wrong, for every human being does this.
8:46b and You become angry with them and deliver them to an enemy
You will become angry with them. In your anger, you will hand them over to their enemies.
-or-
Then you will get angry with them, and allow their enemies to defeat them.
8:46c who takes them as captives to his own land, whether far or near,
They will seize them and take them back to their lands, whether near or far, to be slaves.
-or-
Their enemies will return to their lands, taking Israelites with them to be their slaves. These lands may be far away ⌊from Israel⌋, or close to it.
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