15For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, translators typically select the exclusive form (excluding the addressee) except for the occurrence of “we who are still alive,” for which an inclusive pronoun is used.
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
In Fijian, the paucal exclusive forms neitou and keitou (“of me and a few [two or slight more]”) are used instead. This choice is understandable in view of the introduction found in both letters to the Thessalonians, where the writer Paul indicates clearly that the letters were co-authored by two other colleagues, Silas and Timothy, hence the use of a pronoun referring to three people (“Paul, Silas and Timothy”).
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For the first part of this verse (“we say” in English translations), translators typically select the exclusive form (excluding the addressee).
For the second part (“we who are still alive” in English translations), translators typically select the inclusive form (including the addressee).
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
Following are a number of back-translations of 1 Thessalonians 4:15:
Uma: “This is the teaching that we received from the Lord Yesus. When the Lord comes back, we (incl.) who are still living at that time, we (incl.) will not [go/be] ahead of our (incl.) companions who are already dead.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “This is the teaching of our (incl.) Leader Isa: we (incl.) the people still living at the time of his return, we (incl.) will not be ahead of the dead ones to meet him.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “It is the Word of the Lord, this which we are telling you, it is: we (incl.) who are still alive in the future at the time when the Lord returns, we will not precede the believers who have already died.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Here is what the Lord Jesus made-known to us (excl.) concerning that return of his. He will come-down from heaven shouting a command while simultaneously the highest angel will speak and the blast of God’s horn (made of carabao horn) will be heard. But we who are still alive on that day, we will not precede the believers who died to go meet the Lord Jesus, but rather they will come-alive again first,” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “For we (excl.) are teaching this to you now, this which indeed comes from the Lord, that as for whoever of us is still alive at his returning here, we really won’t get to go ahead of those who have already died.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “Therefore now I want to tell you well about the word the Lord Jesus taught us. Those believers who are still living on the day when the Lord comes will not go ahead to meet the Lord before those who have died are resurrected.” (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)
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.”
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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 choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
What we are teaching you now is the Lord’s teaching raises the same question that “for this other reason” raised in 2.13. The verse literally begins “for this to you we say.” Does the word “this” (Good News Translationwhat) refer backward or forward? Is the Lord’s teaching contained in verse 14 or in 15b ff.? The answer to this question is not immediately clear, since verses 15-17 repeat in more specific terms the content of verse 14. However, it is practically certain that “this” refers forward to the sentence which follows. Paul has announced his theme briefly in verse 14; now, as he prepares to expand it, he makes a solemn appeal to the authority of Christ. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch here, as in 2.13, makes this clear by reversing the two parts of verse 15: “You need have no fear: those who have already died will not be at any disadvantage compared with us, who are still alive when the Lord comes. For this, I can appeal to a word of the Lord.” Bible en français courant solves the problem by beginning “here is…,” an expression which in French is regularly forward-looking. Good News Translation‘s colon after the Lord’s teaching has the same function, but when the passage is read aloud, the punctuation needs a sensitive reader to interpret it with the appropriate intonation. Translator’s New Testament expands the text and divides the sentence: “We are now telling you something which the Lord himself said. It is that those of us who are alive….”
To make clear that the Lord’s teaching refers to what follows, one may use Good News Translation‘s wording of a similar one, for example, “what we are going to tell you is just what the Lord taught.” Otherwise, the transposition of this first clause to the end of verse 15 may be the most satisfactory solution, for example, “we who are still alive when the Lord comes, will not go ahead of those who have already died. This is just what the Lord himself taught.”
The identification of participants in this verse raises linguistic problems which have important theological implications. The first we (in we are teaching you) is defined by the word you; it means Paul and his fellow evangelists. There is no need, as we have seen in many other passages, to limit the reference to Paul alone, as Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch does. The second we (before who are alive on the day the Lord comes) is most naturally understood as including both Paul and his companions on the one hand and his readers on the other. Here (as is not always the case) the grammatical structure of the Greek sentence corresponds to the semantic relations between its parts. Paul’s principal concern, expressed in the main verb, is that those who are still living when the Lord comes will have no priority over those who have already died. Paul is not concerned to make any dogmatic statement, either about which of his readers will still be alive at that time, or about whether he will himself still be alive. The we is quite general (and Phillips is not justified in omitting it completely, translating “those who are still living…”). Paul may have assumed, as the Thessalonian Christian did (see 2 Thess. 2.1-3), that Jesus would come soon, and that he, Paul, would be alive at that time. But the question of Paul’s own survival is not for the moment in focus.
The Lord’s teaching is literally “a word of the Lord.” “Word” clearly means here a whole “message” rather than a single word; and “of the Lord” means “from the Lord” rather than “about the Lord.” Paul is not quoting any recorded saying of Jesus. Nor does he seem to be quoting any particular saying which has since been lost. It would certainly be difficult to decide where to insert quotation marks to identify an assumed quotation. Paul may be giving the general content of Jesus’ teaching about the end of the age, such as was later recorded in such passages as Mark 13. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch‘s literal translation “a word of the Lord” (cf. La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond réviséeZürcher BibelLe Nouveau Testament. Version SynodaleLuther 1984Bijbel in Gewone Taal) is therefore probably too specific; teaching (cf. Bible en français courantBiblia Dios Habla HoyTraduction œcuménique de la Bible) or “message” (BarclayPhillips) is to be preferred. Moffatt‘s “we tell you, as the Lord has told us” is an attractive restructuring which brings out the similarity in the Greek of “we say” and “word,” as Good News Translation‘s we are teaching and teaching also do.
The Greek connecting word “for” (translated by King James VersionRevised Standard VersionMoffatt) is rightly omitted in modern English and some other languages.
Verse 15b, and probably verses 16-17 also, contain the teaching referred to in 15a. The connection is shown in Greek by a “that” (cf. King James VersionRevised Standard Version) which has the same function as the colon in Good News Translation. The verse continues, in literal translation, “we, the living, the left-behind to the appearing of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” “We” is emphatic, in contrast to “those who have fallen asleep.” “Not” is also emphatic, showing that Paul’s main concern is to show that Christians who have died will benefit from the coming of Jesus, just as much as those who are still alive. Several translations combine “living” and “left-behind” in some such phrase as “we who are left alive” (New English Bible); Good News Translation omits the second element. Exactly the same expression is used in verse 17. Good News Translation‘s the day is not expressed in this verse in the Greek.
On the word for “appearing,” see the notes on 2.19. On sleep as a metaphor for death, see the notes on verse 13.
Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch restructures the sentence so as to make the dead, rather than the living, its subject: “Those who have already died will … be at no disadvantage….” The meaning is the same, but this translation brings out more clearly the fact that Paul’s main concern, and that of his readers, is for the Christians who have died. Note that in doing this, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch removes the metaphor which Good News Translation translates go ahead of. Alternatively, Good News Bible‘s spatial metaphor may be replaced by a temporal metaphor without distorting the meaning, for example, “we who are alive when the Lord comes will not be with him any sooner than those who have died.”
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
By the word of the Lord, we declare to you: Paul explained that Jesus himself spoke the words that he was telling them. (It can only be guessed which of the following Paul was referring to: (1) Sayings of Jesus that had been written down, and which were later included in the Gospels. Matthew 24:30–31 is an example. (2) A message from Jesus received directly by Paul. (3) “Sayings of Jesus” which were recorded by someone, but which were not included in the Gospels. The problem is that not everything Paul taught in these verses is found in the Gospels in their present form. So it must be that Paul learned from both sources (1) and (2). See the discussion on this in Best, pp. 189–193.) However, we do not know when Jesus said this or to whom. Therefore, you should not be specific in your translation. If you must say to whom Jesus said this, use as general a term as possible, for example, “according to what the Lord said to people.”
4:15b
that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord: This refers to any believer who was alive at the time when Paul was writing and therefore who might still be alive when Jesus returned.
4:15c
will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep: The Berean Standard Bible phrase by no means translates two different Greek words that both mean “not.” When both occur together, they make the sentence an emphatic negative. Paul was emphasizing that believers who had died would certainly not get left behind when the Lord returned. This was what the Thessalonians had been worrying about.
precede: This means that believers who are alive when Jesus returns will not meet Jesus before those who have already died.
those who have fallen asleep: See the note on 4:13a.
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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.
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