The Greek in 1 Peter 1:17 that is translated into English as “him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds” is rendered in Shan with a phrase that means “God does not look at little-face big-face.”
fear (of God)
The Hebrew and Greek that are translated as “fear (of God)” (or: “honor,” “worship,” or “respect”) is translated as “to have respect/reverence for” (Southern Subanen, Western Highland Purepecha, Navajo (Dinė), Javanese, Tboli), “to make great before oneself” (Ngäbere), “fear-devotion” (Kannada — currently used as a description of the life of piety), “those-with-whom he-is-holy” (those who fear God) (Western Apache) (source for this and above: Reiling / Swellengrebel), “revere God” (Lalana Chinantec), “worship God” (Palantla Chinantec) (source for this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), “obey” (Chichewa) (source: Ernst Wendland), “having/showing respect (for God)” (Makonde) (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext), or with a term that communicates awe (rather than fear of an evil source) (Chol) (source: Robert Bascom).
Bullard / Hatton (2008, p. 8) say the following about this concept: “As the writer of Proverbs states in 1:7, ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.’ (…) ‘The fear of the Lord,’ that is, human fear of God, is an exceptionally difficult concept to express, at least in English. Other languages may have more appropriate terms. The idea probably is rooted in the most ancient days when people were indeed afraid of any deity. But in Israel the concept of fearing God was transformed by God’s revelation into a much fuller idea. Basically, as used in the Bible, the fear of God refers to the proper attitude of reverence and awe before the Holy One. To fear God is to recognize one’s own place as a mere mortal before the Creator, one’s place as a sinner before the Judge, one’s place as a child before the Father, one’s place as the recipient of God’s love. It thus involves submission, repentance, trust, and grateful love toward the One who is fearsome in holiness, in justice, in power that both protects and punishes, and in love. Using the word “fear” is sometimes as good as we can do, but often we will alternate that word with terms like ‘reverence’ or ‘awe.’”
See also fear of the LORD (Isa 11:2) and complete verse (Genesis 22:12) et al.
complete verse (1 Peter 1:17)
Following are a number of back-translations of 1 Peter 1:17:
- Uma: “Relatives, you dwell in this world like a person just passing through. And when you pray to God you say that he is your Father. That is why you must submit to God while you are still living in this world. Because the God that you relate-to-as-Father, he is the Judge [lit., Sitter] who decides the cases of every person according to their behavior, he does not discriminate [lit., consider-the-appearance of] people.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “When God will judge mankind he will judge each-one-individually and he will not make a difference between them. He will judge all their deeds good and bad. Therefore, because you call God ‘Father’ when you pray, you should really honor/respect him as long as you live here in the world.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And since we have called on our Father God for help, it is necessary that our respect for Him is very tight while we are still living here on the earth. He is the one who investigates the activity of mankind according to what each one has done, and He shows favoritism to no one.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
- Kankanaey: “Remember that the God whom you acknowledge as Father in your praying, he also is the one-who-judges. And he will judge all people according to what each one has done without making-distinctions. So you should esteem/respect and fear him during your presence on this earth.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “It’s good for you to be considering that as for this God whom you call Father, he will pass judgment on all, according to what they have done. He doesn’t discriminate against anyone. Therefore it’s necessary that you respect him with fear, as long as you are still here under the heavens.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
- Tenango Otomi: “When you pray to God, you say, ‘My Father, God,’ you say. But God doesn’t play favorites when he judges how each one of us has lived. Therefore it is necessary that you live in fearful reverence during the days you live here on earth.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
- Kekchí: “God judges each person according to what he does, and he does not show favoritism. ‘Our Father’ you say, when you pray. If that is what you say, may you have fear in your hearts as you are here in this world.” (Source: Callow 1972, p. 60)
Father (address for God)
The Greek that is translated with the capitalized “Father” in English when referring to God is translated in Highland Totonac with the regular word for (biological) father to which a suffix is added to indicate respect. The same also is used for “Lord” when referring to Jesus. (Source: Hermann Aschmann in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 171ff. )
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between. In the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017, God the Father is addressed with mi-chichi (御父). This form has the “divine” honorific prefix mi– preceding the archaic honorific form chichi for “father.”
If, however, Jesus addresses his Father, he is using chichi-o (父を) which is also highly respectful but does not have the “divine” honorific. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
See also Lord and my / our Father.
Honorary "are" construct denoting God ("judge")
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, sabak-are-ru (さばかれる) or “judge” is used.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Translation commentary on 1 Peter 1:17
The first part of the verse is literally “and if you call Father the one….” “If” can be taken either to mean “even if” (compare New International Version “since”), which means that it is a known fact that the Christians were indeed doing this, or a conditional “if,” meaning that the writer does not know this to be a fact. Most translations take it with the first meaning; for the second, see New English Bible “If you say Father” (compare Jerusalem Bible, Phillips). Most commentators take the whole clause to refer to prayer; some even suggest that this is a reference to the Christians praying together the Lord’s Prayer which begins with “Our Father.” Since “call” in English is ambiguous, and does not refer specifically to the act of prayer, the Good News Translation has added when you pray to God to make the reference to prayer explicit. Other translations have various ways of capturing this sense, for example, Barclay “The God whom in your prayers you call Father”; Knox “You appeal to God as your father”; New American Bible “In prayer you call upon a Father.”
In some languages it may be necessary to render You call him Father in a form of direct address, for example, “you say to God, Our Father.” It may be useful in such circumstances to change the order of the first two clauses so that the temporal clause when you pray to God occurs first, for example, “when you pray to God, you call him, Our Father.” If the first two clauses are left as indirect discourse, then it may be necessary to change somewhat the specific kind of reference, so that in the first clause one will use the term “God,” and the pronoun in the second clause, for example, “you call God your father when you pray to him.” If the order is reversed, “when you pray to God, you call him your father,” it may then be necessary to start the following clause as a separate sentence, for example, “He is the one who judges all people….”
God is described as one who judges all people by the same standard (literally “who impartially judges each one”). This simply means that God does not play favorites, and that all people fall under the same judgment in so far as God is concerned. In other parts of the New Testament, the impartiality of God is related to his dealings with both Jews and Gentiles; here, perhaps the reference is that those who call God “Father” are in no way given preferential treatment by him. On the contrary, they are judged, as all other people are, according to what each one has done. It should be noted that the verb tense for judge is present, and not past or future, for the focus is on God’s essential function as judge, and not on any specific acts of judgment in the past or in the future (Beare).
A literal rendering of who judges all people by the same standard can result in serious misunderstanding, for it could mean in some languages that God judges all people in the same way, that is to say, by condemning them all alike. In a number of instances it may therefore be important to translate by the same standard by a negative expression, for example, “when God judges all people, he does not show special favors to anyone” or in a figurative sense, “God doesn’t close one eye when he looks at some people’s sins” or “… judges some people’s sins.”
According to what each one has done may then be expressed in some instances as providing the contrast to favoritism, for example, “but he judges each person by thinking about what that person has done” or “what that person has done determines how God will judge him.”
It is because God is both Father and Judge that the readers are exhorted to spend the rest of your lives here on earth in reverence for him. The rest of your lives here on earth is literally “during the time of your stay among strangers.” This goes back to 1.1 and looks forward to 2.11. The expression refers to the Christian’s period of life on earth, viewed as a temporary existence, since his true home is in heaven with the Lord. Many other translations restructure the expression in a way similar to what the Good News Translation has done (for example, Phillips “the time of your stay here on earth”; Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “all the time you live in this world”).
The rest of your lives here on earth may frequently be rendered as “the remaining days you live here on earth” or “however many will be your days here on earth.”
Reverence is literally “fear,” but here the word connotes not fear but “awe,” “respect.” This is usually the attitude one has towards God in worship; in this verse, however, this attitude is taken as valid for the whole Christian life. A literal translation of the Greek term often rendered “fear” can be seriously misleading because it would suggest that the Christians were to be “afraid of God,” while in reality it is the reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ which eliminates this fear. There may not be in a language, however, a wholly appropriate word for reverence, but some such expression as “deep concern for” or “great respect for” may occur. Sometimes reverence may be expressed figuratively as “stand before with your heart fluttering.”
Spend … your time is literally “conduct yourself,” referring specifically to one’s relationship to God (as in Good News Translation, New English Bible), or in a wider sense, to the whole way of life of the Christian as he relates to God and to others (as in Jerusalem Bible, New International Version, Moffatt, New American Bible, Barclay). The way one understands this of course affects one’s understanding of the implied object of reverence, which the Good News Translation understands to be God (also New English Bible). Many other translations, however, understand reverence to refer to the conduct itself, for example, New American Bible “conduct yourselves reverently”; Barclay “spend your time … in reverent living”; Moffatt “to be reverend in your conduct” (however, compare Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “take his will seriously”). Spend … your time may simply be rendered as “live” or “behave” or even “do whatever you do.”
Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The First Letter from Peter. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
SIL Translator’s Notes on 1 Peter 1:17
Paragraph 1:17–21
Some English versions do not begin a new paragraph here. Instead, 1:13–21 forms a paragraph (God’s Word, NET Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Revised Standard Version).
1:17a
Since you call on a Father: There are two ways of interpreting the meaning of the Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Since :
(1) It means since and implies that the statement that follows is an accepted fact. For example:
You say that God is your Father (Contemporary English Version)
(Berean Standard Bible, New International Version, New Century Version, New Living Translation (2004), Good News Translation)
(2) It means if and introduces a statement that may or may not be true. For example:
If you address as Father (New American Standard Bible)
(God’s Word, King James Version, NET Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Revised English Bible, Revised Standard Version, New American Standard Bible)
Peter definitely thought of his readers as being God’s children who prayed to him as their Father (see 1:14a). Therefore, it is recommended that you follow interpretation (1).
you call on a Father: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as you call on a Father refers to calling God “Father” when speaking to him.
For example:
You call him Father, when you pray to God (Good News Translation)
Notice also that the Good News Translation has included the phrase “when you pray to God” to make it clear that Peter was talking about praying to God.
a Father: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as a Father refers to God. In some languages it may be necessary to make this explicit. For example:
You pray to God and call him Father (New Century Version)
1:17b
who judges each one’s work impartially: This phrase describes God the Father. In some languages it may be natural to translate it as a separate sentence:
He judges each one’s work impartially.
If you have not yet made it explicit that Peter is talking about God, it may be natural to do so here:
⌊the God⌋ who judges each one’s work impartially
judges: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as judges here means to decide or declare whether something is right or wrong. In this context it does not specifically mean “condemn.” Some work God declares to be right and good, and some work he judges to be wrong and evil.
The Greek verb judges refers to God’s judging activity in general. It does not specifically refer to any particular act of judging, past or future. The New Living Translation (2004) translates judges here as:
judge or reward (New Living Translation (2004))
each one’s: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates here as each one’s includes all human beings. Other ways to translate each one’s include:
each person’s (New Century Version)
-or-
everybody’s
-or-
each individual’s (New Jerusalem Bible)
work: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as work refers to someone’s conduct or lifestyle as a whole. There are several ways to translate it:
• Use a singular noun:
work (New International Version (2011))
• Use a verb phrase:
what they have done
• Use a plural noun:
their actions
Use the word or phrase that is natural in your language.
impartially: The word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as impartially literally means “without receiving faces” or “without receiving persons.” In other words, it means that God judges all people the same way, regardless of who they are. God is fair; he judges people justly, without bias or prejudice. Other ways to say that God judges “impartially” include:
who judges everyone fairly
-or-
who judges all people according to their actions without favoritism (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
who judges all people by the same standard (Good News Translation)
Your language may have a suitable idiom that means “without favoring one person over another.” This idiom may use the idea of “face,” as the Greek expression does.
General Comment on 1:17a–b
In some languages it may be natural to translate 1:17a–b as a separate sentence:
You call on ⌊God as⌋ your Father, and he judges each person without partiality.
1:17c
1:17c gives the conclusion Peter drew from his statement in 1:17a–b. If you have translated 1:17a–b as a separate sentence, it may be natural to make it clear that 1:17c is a conclusion by using a word meaning “so” or “therefore.” For example:
⌊So⌋ you should live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.
conduct yourselves in reverent fear during your stay as foreigners: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as conduct yourselves in reverent fear during your stay as foreigners may be translated literally as “conduct the time of your exile in fear.” The Greek text refers explicitly to the time when Peter’s readers were living in this world, away from heaven, their true home. Other ways to translate this include:
live out the time of your temporary residence here (NET Bible)
-or-
while you are living in exile here on earth, behave
reverent fear: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as reverent fear is literally “fear.” In this context it refers to awe and wonder at the greatness and holiness of God. Other ways to translate it include:
reverence (Good News Translation)
-or-
awe (Revised English Bible)
-or-
respect (New Century Version)
stay as foreigners: The phrase stay as foreigners means that Peter’s readers were only temporary residents of this world. His words imply that a Christian’s eternal home is with God in heaven (see 1:1c).
Many English versions make the location of this temporary residence explicit. For example:
during the time of your stay on earth (New American Standard Bible)
-or-
during your time on earth (Revised English Bible)
General Comment on 1:17a–c
Verse parts 17a–b give the reason for what Peter told his readers to do in 1:17c. In some languages it may be more natural to translate the command first, before the reason for it. For example:
17c During your stay here as temporary residents ⌊of this earth⌋, behave with a respectful fear ⌊of God⌋, 17b because he judges everyone’s conduct fairly, 17a and you call him “Father.”
-or-
17c Live in reverence for God during your stay here on earth. 17a For you call him “Father,” 17b and he is the impartial Judge of what everyone does.
© 2018 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.