well

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “well” in English is translated in Cherokee as ama atlvhdiyi or “where you fill it with water.” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 16)

grain

The Greek and Hebrew that is translated in English as “grain” (or: “corn”) is translated in Kui as “(unthreshed) rice.” Helen Evans (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. ) explains: “Padddy [unthreshed rice] is the main crop of the country and rice the staple diet of the people, besides which [grain] is unknown and there is no word for it, and it seemed to us that paddy and rice in the mind of the Kui people stood for all that corn meant to the Jews.” “Paddy” is also the translation in Pa’o Karen (source: Gordon Luce in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 153f. ).

Other translations include: “wheat” (Teutila Cuicatec), “corn” (Lalana Chinantec), “things to eat” (Morelos Nahuatl), “grass corn” (wheat) (Chichimeca-Jonaz) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), “millet” (Lambya) (source: project-specific notes in Paratext), “food” (Nyamwezi) (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)or ntimumma lujia / “seeds for food” (Lokạạ — “since Lokạạ does not have specific terms for maize and rice that can be described as grains”) (source: J.A. Naudé, C.L. Miller Naudé, J.O. Obono in Acta Theologica 43/2, 2023, p. 129ff. )

complete verse (2 Samuel 17:19)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of 2 Samuel 17:19:

  • Kupsabiny: “The wife of that home closed the eye/opening of the well (top of the well) with something and dried her food from there. There was nobody who knew that there were some people in that well.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “His wife brought something to cover [it] and covered [lit.: shut] the opening of the well, and on top of that [she] put grain, like for drying in the sun. Then no one knew that anything was there.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “The wife of a man took a covering and she covered the well and spread- grains -on-(it) so-that no-one will-suspect/[lit. think] that someone is-hiding there.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “The man’s wife took a cloth/mat and covered the well, and scattered grain on top of it in order that no one would know that two men were hiding inside it.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on 2 Samuel 17:19

The woman: this refers to the wife of the man who owned the well where the two men were hiding. Some may say “the woman of that house” or something similar.

The object of both verbs (took and spread) is the covering over the top of the well. In many languages it will be more natural to supply the object with the first verb rather than the second, as Revised Standard Version does. Most English versions, including New Revised Standard Version, do this.

Covering: the text uses a very general word here for anything that covers an object. But in this context, what probably happened was that, after the men had gone down into the well, the normal protective covering was placed back over the hole, and that in turn was covered by something like a mat, “a piece of canvas” (New Jerusalem Bible), or a “cloth” (Moffatt, Knox, and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). This concealed the fact that there was a well at that place.

The well’s mouth: the “opening” of a well may be described in different ways in different languages. Some may say “mouth” as in Hebrew. But others will refer to it as the “top” or the “door,” or some other term may be used. Translators should not picture a well with a high protective barrier around it, that is, where the walls of the well extend above the earth’s surface. It was rather a deep hole in the earth with a protective covering level with the surface of the earth, so that the whole opening could be covered by a mat or something else on which grain could be spread out to dry in the sun. The drying of grain in this manner was not unusual in that part of the world at that time and provided a perfect way to hide the opening of the well.

Nothing was known of it: literally “and the matter [or, word] was not known.” That is, the fact that the two men were hiding in the well was not something that people knew about. In the English rendering of Revised Standard Version, the pronoun it may be understood as referring to the well itself or to the fact that the two men were hiding in it. But since the subject of the verb in Hebrew is clearly “the matter,” this cannot refer to the well, but only to the whole situation. The passive construction may be reworded to say something like “no one could tell that the two men were there” or “people could not know about the hiding place.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .