widow

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “widow” in English is translated in West Kewa as ona wasa or “woman shadow” (source: Karl J. Franklin in Notes on Translation 70/1978, pp. 13ff.) and in Newari as “husband already died ones” or “ones who have no husband” (source: Newari Back Translation).

In Cherokee the term is gender neutral and translates to “one who has lost someone.” (Source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 100)

The etymological meaning of the Hebrew almanah (אַלְמָנָה) is likely “pain, ache,” the Greek chéra (χήρα) is likely “to leave behind,” “abandon,” and the English widow (as well as related terms in languages such as Dutch, German, Sanskrit, Welsh, or Persian) is “to separate,” “divide” (source: Wiktionary).

See also widows.

Translation commentary on 2 Esdras 2:2

The mother who bore them says to them: Here Jerusalem is pictured as the mother of Israel (compare 2 Esd 10.7; see also Isa 50.1; 54.1; Jer 50.12; Gal 4.26). In many languages translators will have to use a simile here, beginning this verse as follows: “Jerusalem was like their mother, who gave birth to them….” Contemporary English Version is similar with “Jerusalem was like a mother who gave birth to my people.”

Go, my children, because I am a widow and forsaken: Jerusalem tells her children, the Israelites, to leave home, because she has become a widow left completely alone (compare Lam 1.1; Bar 4.19). The adjective forsaken may be rendered “lonely” (Contemporary English Version) or “completely alone” (Good News Bible). Contemporary English Version renders this sentence as “Go away, my children, because I am a lonely widow.”

An alternative model for this verse is:

• Jerusalem was like their mother, who brought them into the world, but now she says to them, ‘Go, my children. I am only a lonely widow.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.