gentiles / nations

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The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).

Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).

In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

See also nations.

Translation commentary on 1 Maccabees 5:22

He pursued them to the gate of Ptolemais: The city of Ptolemais was the nearest of the three cities named in verse 15. Simon and his soldiers didn’t enter the city, but defeated the Gentiles outside the city gates (see verse 55). An alternative model for this clause is “He and his army pursued the Gentiles all the way to the gates of the city of Ptolemais.”

And as many as three thousand of the Gentiles fell: Good News Bible expresses this clause clearly with “killing about 3,000 of them,” and so does Contemporary English Version with “where they killed about three thousand Gentiles.”

And he despoiled them means that Simon and his soldiers took the weapons and any articles of value from the dead Gentile soldiers. We may say “and they took all their valuable possessions.”

An alternative model for this verse is:

• He and his soldiers pursued [or, chased after] the Gentiles all the way to the city of Ptolemais. There they killed about 3,000 [or, three thousand] of them, and took all their valuable possessions.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Maccabees. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.