yoke

The Greek and Hebrew term that is translated into English as “yoke,” the Afar translation uses koyta (poles of camel pack) which refers to two poles in front of the hump and two behind; elsewhere in agricultural Ethiopia the yoke is only in front of the hump.

In Chol it is translated with tajbal, a term for “headband” (for carrying) (source: Ronald D. Olson in Notes on Translation January, 1968, p. 15ff.). Likewise, in Kele, it is translated with njɛmbɛ, “a carrying strap worn around the head and across the chest or shoulders to support a burden of firewood, garden produce or even a child carried by this on the back or hip” (source: William Ford in The Bible Translator 1957, p. 203ff. ).

In Kwasio it is translated with a term that refers to a “bulky piece of wood attached to the neck of a goat, preventing it from roaming freely in the brushy undergrowth.”

Joshua Ham explains: “When checking this verse in Kwasio, I was surprised to find that the Kwasio had a word for yoke. You see, none of the language groups we have worked with have a tradition of using animals to pull carts or plows. Since yokes don’t exist in the culture, there’s no need for a word for that concept in these languages.

“When I asked the Kwasio team about their word for yoke, they said that they don’t use yokes to help animals pull plows; rather, their word for yoke refers to a bulky piece of wood attached to the neck of a goat, preventing it from roaming freely in the brushy undergrowth. So while the exact use of a Kwasio yoke is not the same as a biblical yoke, there are a lot of similarities: in both cases, it’s a piece of wood around an animal’s neck that serves to keep the animal under control. While the overlap isn’t perfect, it’s pretty good — and almost certainly better than trying to squeeze in a distracting explanation of how yokes function in the biblical cultures.”

Adam Boyd (in The PNG Experience) tells this story about finding the right term in Enga: “Jesus’s words in Matthew 11:29-30 are some of the most difficult to translate into the Enga language. From the time that I became a Christian, I was taught that a yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the neck of two animals and attached to a plough or cart that they are to pull. This is an easy enough concept to understand for people who come from societies that make use of beasts of burden, but in Papua New Guinea, there are no beasts of burden. Consequently the concept of a yoke placed on animals is completely foreign. Thus, we have struggled greatly in our attempt to translate Matthew 11:29-30.

“Recently, however, I came to learn that a yoke can also refer to a wooden frame that a person places on his neck or shoulders to make it easier to carry a heavy load. Indeed, the Bible often makes figurative use of the word ‘yoke’ as it refers to people and not to beasts of burden (see 1 Kings 12:4-14). As I was pondering that idea, I began to notice that when Engan men carry heavy logs on one shoulder, they often balance the load by supporting it with a small stick placed across the other shoulder. A few weeks ago, it clicked in my mind that the small stick they use to make it easier to carry a heavy log is like a yoke.

“Excited by this realization, I quickly asked my friend Benjamin if the stick that men use to make it easier to carry a heavy log has a name in Enga. Sure enough it does. It is called a pyakende. With great anticipation, I asked the translation team if we could use the word pyakende to translate the word ‘yoke’. After wrestling with the phrasing for a little while, we came up with the following translation: ‘In order to remove the heaviness from your shoulders, take my pyakende. When you have taken it, you will receive rest. As my pyakende helps you, what I give you to carry is not heavy and you will carry it without struggling.’”

“Yoke” is illustrated for use in Bible translations in East Africa by Pioneer Bible Translators like this:

Image owned by PBT and Jonathan McDaniel and licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Click or tap here to see a short video clip showing how yokes were used in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)

inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (2Chr 10:10)

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, the Jarai translation uses the exclusive pronoun, excluding Rehoboam.

addressing one's or someone else's father respectfully in Japanese (父上)

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 important aspect of addressing someone else in one’s or someone else’s family is by selecting the correct word when referring to them. One way to do this is through the usage of an appropriate title within a conversation as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017.

When the speaker humbly refers to his or her father in the presence of respected interlocutor(s), chichi (父) is often used (see addressing one’s father humbly / respectfully in Japanese (父)).

In some conversations, archaic honorific forms for “father” are chosen that also contain chichi (父) and typically indicate a greater level of respect. That includes chichi-ue (父上). An interesting contrast between the use of of chichi and chichi-ue can be found when there is a reference to “my father and your father.” The former is addressed with chichi and the latter with chichi-ue (for more see 1 Kings 15:19, 1 Kings 20:34, and 2 Chronicles 16:3 along with addressing one’s father humbly / respectfully in Japanese (父)).

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on 2 Chronicles 10:10

And the young men who had grown up with him said to him: For the young men who had grown up with him, see the comments on 2Chr 10.8. Good News Translation uses only the pronoun “They,” while New Living Translation and Revised English Bible shorten this expression to “The young men.” Said to him is literally “said to him saying.” In this context the verb said may be better rendered “replied” (Good News Translation, New Living Translation) or “answered” (New Century Version).

Thus shall you speak to the people who said to you, “Your father made our yoke heavy, but do you lighten it for us”: See the comments on 2Chr 10.4. For reasons of English style Good News Translation uses only the pronoun “them” for this whole expression. This certainly simplifies the structure and helps to resolve the problem of one of the embedded quotations in this verse. However, if translators follow Good News Translation here, they should at least say “those people,” since the young men are looking down on the people.

Thus shall you say to them introduces the quotation that follows. New Jerusalem Bible says “This is the right thing to say to them.” For some translators these words are an unnecessary intrusion into the direct discourse of the verse since they seem to say the same thing as Thus shall you speak to this people, which introduces the quotation earlier in the verse. If a literal rendering of the Hebrew structure is unnatural in the receptor language, then these words may be omitted.

My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins: These words that the young men tell Rehoboam to speak are in the form of a proverb. The general sense is clear: the easiest measure that Rehoboam will impose on the people will be far worse that the hardest measures to which his father subjected them. Compare Contemporary English Version: “Compared to me, my father was weak.” Little finger translates a single Hebrew word that occurs in the Old Testament only here and in the parallel text of 1 Kgs 12.10. It comes from the root meaning “little,” but the exact meaning here is uncertain. It has traditionally been translated little finger, but it may be a euphemism for “penis.” Even among those interpreters who follow the traditional rendering, there are some who suggest that it may be a euphemism for the male sexual organ. Loins translates a Hebrew noun that refers to the area of the body which unites the upper and lower parts of the body. Translations include loins (the hip area), “waist” (New International Version, New Living Translation), “arm” (Bible en français courant, Parole de Vie), “thighs” (Moffatt), and “body” (New American Bible). The meaning of this whole expression is almost certainly “I will be much harder on you than my father ever was.” But to express the meaning in a nonfigurative way would lose something of its significance and would make the following verse almost totally redundant.

A model that avoids the embedded quotations in this verse is:

• They gave him the following suggestion/idea of what he should say to the people who had made the request: “My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .