pray / prayer

The Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and Greek that is translated as “pray” (or “prayer”) in English is often translated as “talking with God” (Central Pame, Tzeltal, Chol, Chimborazo Highland Quichua, Shipibo-Conibo, Kaqchikel, Tepeuxila Cuicatec, Copainalá Zoque, Central Tarahumara).

Other solutions include:

  • “to beg” or “to ask,” (full expression: “to ask with one’s heart coming out,” which leaves out selfish praying, for asking with the heart out leaves no place for self to hide) (Tzotzil)
  • “to cause God to know” (Huichol)
  • “to raise up one’s words to God” (implying an element of worship, as well as communication) (Miskito, Lacandon) (source of this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Shilluk: “speak to God” (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)
  • Mairasi: “talk together with Great Above One (=God)” (source: Enggavoter, 2004)
  • San Blas Kuna: “call to one’s Father” (source: Claudio and Marvel Iglesias in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 85ff. )
  • Ik: waan: “beg.” Terrill Schrock (in Wycliffe Bible Translators 2016, p. 93) explains (click or tap here to read more):

    What do begging and praying have to do with each other? Do you beg when you pray? Do I?

    “The Ik word for ‘visitor’ is waanam, which means ‘begging person.’ Do you beg when you go visiting? The Ik do. Maybe you don’t beg, but maybe when you visit someone, you are looking for something. Maybe it’s just a listening ear.

    When the Ik hear that [my wife] Amber and I are planning trip to this or that place for a certain amount of time, the letters and lists start coming. As the days dwindle before our departure, the little stack of guests grows. ‘Please, sir, remember me for the allowing: shoes, jacket (rainproof), watch, box, trousers, pens, and money for the children. Thank you, sir, for your assistance.’

    “A few people come by just to greet us or spend bit of time with us. Another precious few will occasionally confide in us about their problems without asking for anything more than a listening ear. I love that.

    “The other day I was in our spare bedroom praying my list of requests to God — a nice list covering most areas of my life, certainly all the points of anxiety. Then it hit me: Does God want my list, or does he want my relationship?

    “I decided to try something. Instead of reading off my list of requests to God, I just talk to him about my issues without any expectation of how he should respond. I make it more about our relationship than my list, because if our personhood is like God’s personhood, then maybe God prefers our confidence and time to our lists, letters, and enumerations.”

In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning (click or tap here to read more):

  • For Acts 1:14, 20:36, 21:5: kola ttieru-yawur nehla — “hold the waist and hug the neck.” (“This is the more general term for prayer and often refers to worship in prayer as opposed to petition. The Luang people spend the majority of their prayers worshiping rather than petitioning, which explains why this term often is used generically for prayer.”)
  • For Acts 28:9: sumbiani — “pray.” (“This term is also used generically for ‘prayer’. When praying is referred to several times in close proximity, it serves as a variation for kola ttieru-yawur nehla, in keeping with Luang discourse style. It is also used when a prayer is made up of many requests.”)
  • For Acts 8:15, 12:5: polu-waka — “call-ask.” (“This is a term for petition that is used especially when the need is very intense.”)

Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.

complete verse (Acts 10:30)

Following are a number of back-translations of Acts 10:30:

  • Uma: “Kornelius said: ‘Three nights ago, about this time, while I was praying in my house at three o’clock in the afternoon, suddenly there was a man standing in front of me. His clothes were shining.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Korneliyus answered, he said, ‘Perhaps about this time three days ago, I was here in the house praying during the afternoon-prayer time. Then suddenly there was a man standing facing me, his clothes were very shiny.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Cornelius answered, ‘Four days ago at this time, I was here in the house when the sun had half-way gone down because I was praying. Surprisingly, a man whose clothing shined appeared to me.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Cornelius answered-him and said, ‘The day before the day-before-yesterday at like this at three o’clock, I was praying in this my house. And suddenly-there-was one whose clothes were-dazzling standing in-front-of-me.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Without anything further, Cornelio then related it. He said, ‘I had you fetched because three days ago now, when I was praying here at the house, the sun being then long past its zenith, suddenly/unexpectedly a man came here to me. All his clothes were gleaming.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Acts 10:30

Three days ago (Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, Phillips, Moffatt, An American Translation*, Zürcher Bibel, Knox) is “four days ago” in many translations (Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, Barclay, Luther). There is no textual difference but only a difference of interpretation of the Greek phrase “from the fourth day.” Cornelius means that this was the fourth day from the day on which the angel had appeared to him (see vv. 7, 9, 23, 24). There is a difference, however, between the meaning of the Greek expression “from four days ago” and the English expression “four days ago.” If, for example, on a Friday we were to say “four days ago” we would mean Monday; but in New Testament times this phrase would mean Tuesday, for it would include in its calculation Friday itself. The correct English equivalent therefore is three days ago. In a number of languages, however, the New Testament system of reckoning is employed and therefore a translation “four days ago” would be appropriate. The particular form of this reference to time depends upon the usage in the receptor language. It is assumed by most commentators and translators that about this time is a correct rendering of the Greek phrase “until this hour” (though some exegetes assume that it is a precise temporal reference, “exactly”) and that it modifies the adverbial expression three days ago. At three o’clock in the afternoon is literally the “ninth hour” (see 3.1).

Three o’clock in the afternoon was the time for the afternoon prayers; hence the New English Bible has “I was in the house here saying the afternoon prayers.” Some manuscripts have “praying and fasting” (Good News Translation praying), and some scholars believe that the verb “fasting” was deleted from the present verse because some scribe recognized that nothing had been said in the previous account about Cornelius’ fasting. However, it is more likely that the words were added by a scribe who believed that fasting should come before baptism (see 9.9).

A man dressed in shining clothes is, of course, an angel (see 1.10).

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .