10So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We went to the Aramean camp, but there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied, the donkeys tied, and the tents as they were.”
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 and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the exclusive pronoun, excluding the gatekeepers.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of 2 Kings 7:10:
Kupsabiny: “So those people went and called to the guards at the gate of the city and said to (them), ‘We went to the camp of the people of Syria, but when we looked around the tents were quiet/deserted. But the horses and the donkeys which were tied were the only (things) there.’” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “They came back to Samaria. Then they spoke loudly to the guards at the gate, "When we went to the camp of the Arameans, we did not see anyone there. We didn’t hear anyone’s voice either. The horses and donkeys had been tethered. The tents had also been abandoned as they were."” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “So they returned to the city of Samaria and they called the guards of the gate/entrance of the city and told-(them), ‘We (incl.) went to the camp of the Arameanhon and no man at-all was there, aside- only -from the horses and donkeys which were-tied-up. And the things/properties were still in the tents.’” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “So they went to the guards at the city gates and called out to them, ‘We went to where the army of Syria had set up their tents, but we did not see or hear anyone there. Their horses and donkeys were still tied up, but their tents were all deserted/abandoned!’” (Source: Translation for Translators)
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “donkey” in English was translated in the 1900 Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) translation (a newer version was published in 2000) as siutitôĸ or “‘something with big ears.” “[This] is based on the word siut ‘ear’ combined with the same suffix –tôĸ (-tooq).” (Source: Lily Kahn & Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi in The Bible Translator 2019, p. 125ff.)
These Hebrew and Greek words (with the exception of pōlos and hupozugion — see discussion below) all definitely refer to the Domestic Donkey equus asinus. However the different words do have slight semantic differences among them.
Chamor and onos are the generic words for donkey while ’athon (feminine gender) refers specifically to a saddle donkey or a donkey used for riding. A saddle donkey is usually a large strong female donkey the males are too difficult to control when they are near a female in heat. The Hebrew word is derived from a root that means “strong”.
‘Ayir refers to the young male or jack donkey (probably with an emphasis on its liveliness and the difficulty in controlling it since the Hebrew root means something like “frisky”).
Onarion means a young donkey of either sex. Some languages will have a special word for a young donkey. This will be appropriate for translating onarion.
The word hupozugion often translated “donkey,” actually indicates any beast of burden. Walter Bauer, the famous German New Testament scholar, has argued very convincingly that the animal referred to in Matthew 21:5 in the expression epi pōlon huion hupozugiou is the foal of a horse not a donkey (1953:220-229). In some languages it will be possible to express this in a way that does not designate a specific species of animal`, as in “beast of burden.”
Pōlos usually refers to a foal, that is a young horse, unless a word for donkey follows.
Donkeys are domestic animals belonging to the same family as the horse, but they are smaller and have longer ears. The donkey bred and used in the Middle East is the domesticated Nubian or Somali Wild Ass Equus Asinus africanus. In its original wild state this was a gray ass with pale, whitish belly and dark rings on the lower part of the legs. It was domesticated in Egypt as early as 2500 B.C. In its domesticated version, as a result of interbreeding with donkeys from Europe and Persia, the donkey came to be a variety of colors from dark brown, through light brown to the original gray and occasionally white. The Hebrew chamor comes from a root meaning “reddish brown.”
Donkeys are good pack animals being able to carry as much as the larger mule without the latter’s unpredictable moods. They also have great stamina and are easy to feed since they eat almost any available vegetation. Larger individual animals (usually females) are also often used for riding.
Donkeys were highly prized in biblical times especially females since they were suitable for packing and riding and had the potential for producing offspring. Donkeys were seen as man’s best friend in the animal kingdom. They were the common man’s means of transport and many ordinary families owned a donkey. They were used for plowing and for turning large millstones as well as a means of transport.
Today domestic donkeys are found all over savannah Africa the Middle East South and Central Asia Europe Latin America and Australia. They do not seem to be reared in rain forest or monsoon areas but they are nevertheless often known in these areas.
A donkey was considered to be a basic domestic requirement and thus the number of donkeys available was a means of measuring the relative prosperity of a society at any given time. While only powerful political or military people rode horses (which were usually owned by the state) the common people rode donkeys. This is the significance of the passage in Zechariah 9:9: the victorious king would return to the city riding a donkey thus identifying himself as a common Israelite rather than a victorious warlord.
In the majority of languages there is a local or a borrowed word for donkey. This is the obvious choice. In areas of Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea, West Africa, and other places, where donkeys are rare or unknown, the word from the dominant major language or trade language (for example, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, or Arabic) is often transliterated.
In most contexts ’athon should be translated by the equivalent of “female” donkey, but in some contexts riding donkey is better.
‘Ayir should be translated according to the specific context. In Genesis 32:15 the translation should definitely be the equivalent of “male donkey”, and probably also in Judges 10:4 and Judges 12:14. The significance of these latter passages is that female donkeys were the more normal choice of mount.
In Job 11:12 the emphasis is probably on the friskiness of the donkey, and the translation should be the equivalent of “He ties his young donkey to a grapevine, his frisky young ass to the best of the vines” (indicating a certain amount of irresponsibility, and perhaps extravagance).
In Job 11:12 and Zechariah 9:9 the obvious emphasis is on the youth of the donkey, so the equivalent of “colt”, “foal”, “young donkey”, and so on should be used.
The common Hebrew conjunction here is translated So, showing the logical relationship between the reasoning of the four men and their subsequent action.
They came: The verb came implies “to the city of Samaria.” This will probably need to be made explicit in many languages. Good News Translation and Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje go even further by stating also that the men “left the Syrian camp.” The same verb at the beginning of the direct quotation will be more logically rendered “went” (Good News Translation, New Revised Standard Version) in most languages since the men speaking are no longer located in the Syrian camp. For the first clause in the quotation, New Jerusalem Bible translates “We have been to the Aramaean camp.”
Gatekeepers were people who stood guard at the city gate especially in times of crisis. The Hebrew says literally “one who is occupied with the gate.” Although the Masoretic Text has the singular noun “gatekeeper,” the ancient Syriac reads “gatekeepers,” and verse 11 also has the plural noun “gatekeepers.” In this particular case there was more than one person at the gate.
For behold see the comments on verse 5 and 2 Kgs 2.11. See also the discussion on Hebrew focusing particles in “Translating 1–2 Kings,” pages 13-14. Here again the element of surprise is in view.
Tied: Several English translations use the technical term “tethered” (Revised English Bible, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New Living Translation), meaning that an animal is tied to a post or stake. But this English rendering comes from the context and not because there is a special word in Hebrew. The Hebrew has a rather general term.
When the men report that they found the animals and tents of the Syrians as they were, this implies “as they were before the Syrians fled,” but this may be stated more naturally as in Good News Translation, which says “just as the Syrians left them.”
Translators may wish to consider changing the direct quotation to an indirect statement as has been done by Revised English Bible, which translates “called to the watch at the city gate and described how they had gone to the Aramaean camp and found not one man in it and had heard no human voice: nothing but horses and donkeys tethered, and the tents left as they were.”
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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