12The king got up in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Arameans have prepared against us. They know that we are starving, so they left the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’ ”
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 inclusive pronoun, including everyone.
Some languages do not have a concept of kingship and therefore no immediate equivalent for the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin that is translated as “king” in English. Here are some (back-) translations:
Ninia Yali: “big brother with the uplifted name” (source: Daud Soesilio in Noss 2007, p. 175)
Nyamwezi: mutemi: generic word for ruler, by specifying the city or nation it becomes clear what kind of ruler (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Ghomála’: Fo (“The word Fo refers to the paramount ruler in the kingdoms of West Cameroon. He holds administrative, political, and religious power over his own people, who are divided into two categories: princes (descendants of royalty) and servants (everyone else).” (Source: Michel Kenmogne in Theologizing in Context: An Example from the Study of a Ghomala’ Christian Hymn))
Faye Edgerton retells how the term in Navajo was determined:
“[This term was] easily expressed in the language of Biblical culture, which had kings and noblemen with their brilliant trappings and their position of honor and praise. But leadership among the Navajos is not accompanied by any such titles or distinctions of dress. Those most respected, especially in earlier days, were their headmen, who were the leaders in raids, and the shaman, who was able to serve the people by appealing for them to the gods, or by exorcising evil spirits. Neither of these made any outward show. Neither held his position by political intrigue or heredity. If the headman failed consistently in raids, he was superceded by a better warrior. If the shaman failed many times in his healing ceremonies, it was considered that he was making mistakes in the chants, or had lost favor with the gods, and another was sought. The term Navajos use for headman is derived from a verb meaning ‘to move the head from side to side as in making an oration.’ The headman must be a good orator, able to move the people to go to war, or to follow him in any important decision. This word is naat’áanii which now means ‘one who rules or bosses.’ It is employed now for a foreman or boss of any kind of labor, as well as for the chairman of the tribal council. So in order to show that the king is not just a common boss but the highest ruler, the word ‘aláahgo, which expresses the superlative degree, was put before naat’áanii, and so ‘aláahgo naat’áanii ‘anyone-more-than-being around-he-moves-his-head-the-one-who’ means ‘the highest ruler.’ Naat’áanii was used for governor as the context usually shows that the person was a ruler of a country or associated with kings.”
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 show different degree of politeness is through the choice of a second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used anata (あなた) is typically used when the speaker is humbly addressing another person.
In these verses, however, omae (おまえ) is used, a cruder second person pronoun, that Jesus for instance chooses when chiding his disciples.
Rose in the night: The rendering of this expression should help the reader to understand that it was still dark and that the four lepers had not waited until morning to report the good news. However, as soon as the king heard the message, he immediately assumed it to be a part of a plot by the enemy forces. Some possible models indicating the time when the king got out of bed are “got out of bed before sunrise” or “got up while it was still dark” (New Jerusalem Bible).
His servants were almost certainly very high-level subordinates of the king (see the comments on 1 Kgs 1.2). Good News Translation rightly calls them “his officials.” Some other possible renderings are “his officers” (New Jerusalem Bible, New International Version, New Century Version), “his high [military] officers” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), and “his staff” (Revised English Bible).
I will tell you …: Instead of a literal rendering of these words, it may be more natural in certain languages to say “Let me tell you…” (New American Bible). The Hebrew text contains a particle of entreaty here, which is sometimes translated “please” (see the comments on 1 Kgs 1.12). The king then outlines what he mistakenly believes to be the strategy of the Syrian army. He thinks that they are attempting to attract his army to a position outside the fortified city in order to capture them there.
In this context several translations correctly say “we are starving” (New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible) rather than simply we are hungry.
Open country translates a Hebrew noun that refers to pastureland or fields. The rendering open country may give the incorrect idea that there were not hiding places there. A better translation is “countryside” or “fields” (Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh).
When they come out of the city …: This embedded quotation is introduced by the word thinking, which renders the verb “to say” in Hebrew. In quite a few languages it will be much more natural to make this quotation within the larger one into an indirect statement, as Good News Translation and New American Bible have done.
The city is, of course, Samaria, as Bible en français courant and Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente make explicit by saying “They are certain that we will go out of Samaria….”
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 .