Passover

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The Hebrew and Greek pesach/pascha that is typically translated in English as “Passover” (see below) is translated in a variety of descriptive ways of various aspects of the Jewish festival. (Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight):

  • Ojitlán Chinantec: “the feast of the passing by of God’s angel”
  • Lalana Chinantec: “the day would come which is called Passover, when the Israel people remember how they went out of the land of Egypt”
  • Huehuetla Tepehua: “the celebration when they ate their sheep”
  • Umiray Dumaget Agta: “the celebration of the day of their being brought out of bondage”
    (source for this and above: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)
  • Obolo: ijọk Iraraka — “Festival of Passing” (source: Enene Enene)
  • Guhu-Samane: “special day of sparing” (source: Ernest Richert in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 198ff. )
  • Yakan: “The festival of the Isra’il tribe which they call For-Remembering” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Wolof: “Festival of the day of Salvation” (“the term ‘pass over’ brings up the image of a person’s crossing over a chasm after death”) (source: Marilyn Escher)
  • Bura-Pabir: vir kucelir fəlɓəla kəi — “time-of happiness-of jumping-over house”
  • Berom: Nzem Gyilsit Nelɔ — “Festival-of jumping-of houses”
  • Nigerian Fulfulde: Humto Ƴaɓɓitaaki / Humto Sakkinki — “Festival-of passing-over”
  • Hausa: Bikin Ƙetarewa — “Festival-of going-over” (source for this and three above: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
  • Jula: “Feast of end of slavery” (source: Fritz Goerling)
  • Bafanji: laiŋzieʼ — “pass-jump over” (source: Cameron Hamm)
  • Tiéyaxo Bozo / Jenaama Bozo: “Salvation/Rescue (religious) feast” (source: Marko Hakkola)
  • Sabaot: Saakweetaab Keeytaayeet — “Festival of Passing-by” (source: Iver Larsen)
  • Language spoken in India and Bangladesh: “Festival of avoidance”
  • Vlax Romani: o ghes o baro le Nakhimasko — “the Day of the Passing”
  • Saint Lucian Creole: Fèt Délivwans — “Feast of Deliverance” (source: David Frank)
  • Finnish: pääsiäinen (“The term is very probably coined during the NT translation process around 1520-1530. It is connected to a multivalent verb päästä and as such refers either to the Exodus (päästä meaning “to get away [from Egypt]”) or to the end of the Lent [päästä referring to get relieved from the limitations in diet]. The later explanation being far more probable than the first.”)
  • Northern Sami: beas’sážat (“Coined following the model in Finnish. The Sami verb is beassat and behaves partly like the Finnish one. Many Christian key terms are either borrowed from Finnish or coined following the Finnish example.”)
  • Estonian: ülestõusmispüha — “holiday/Sunday of the resurrection” — or lihavõttepüha — “holiday/Sunday of returning of meat”
  • Karelian: äijüpäivü — “the great day” (“Here one can hear the influence of the Eastern Christianity, but not directly Russian as language, because the Russian term is Пасха/Pasha or Воскресение Христово/Voskresenie Hristovo, ‘[the day of] the resurrection of Christ,’ but the week before Easter is called as the great week.”) (Source for this and three above: Seppo Sipilä)
  • Russian (for Russian speaking Muslims): праздник Освобождения/prazdnik Osvobozhdeniya — “Festival of-liberation” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
  • Spanish Sign Language: pass through + miracle (source: John Elwode in The Bible Translator 2008, p. 78ff. )


    “Passover” in Spanish Sign Language, source: Sociedad Bíblica de España

  • English: Passover (term coined by William Tyndale that both replicates the sound of the Hebrew original pesah — פסח as well as part of the meaning: “passing over” the houses of the Israelites in Egypt) — oddly, the English Authorized Version (King James Version) translates the occurrence in Acts 12:4 as Easter
  • Low German: Osterfest “Easter” (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006)

Many Romance languages follow the tradition from Latin that has one term for both “Easter” and “Passover” (pascha). Portuguese uses Páscoa for both, Italian uses Pascha, and French has Pâque for “Passover” and the identically pronounced Pâques for “Easter.”

In languages in francophone and lusophone (Portuguese speaking) Africa, indigenous languages typically use the Romance word for “Easter” as a loanword and often transliterate pesach/pascha. In Kinyarwanda and Rundi Pasika is used, in Swahili and Congo Swahili Pasaka, and in Lingala Pasika. In some cases, the transliteration of “Passover” is derived from the European language, such as Umbundu’s Pascoa (from Portuguese) and Bulu’s Pak (from French).

As John Ellingworth (in The Bible Translator 1980, p 445f. ) points out “in most contexts only the presence or absence of the definite article distinguishes them [in French la pâque for Passover and Pâques for Easter]. Since most African languages do not have definite articles, there remains no way to distinguish between the two terms where the general population has borrowed the word for Easter and the Bible translators have borrowed the word for Passover to use in their translation. Some even consider the references to [Passover] before the death of Christ as prophetic!”

See also this devotion on YouVersion .

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Passover .

soldier

The Greek that is translated as “soldier” in English didn’t have a direct equivalent in Enlhet so it was translated with “those that bind us” (source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 24ff. ) and in Noongar it is mammarapa-bakadjiny or “men of fighting” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).

complete verse (Acts 12:4)

Following are a number of back-translations of Acts 12:4:

  • Uma: “They did arrest Petrus, and jailed him. They ordered four groups of soldiers to guard him, each group of soldiers consisting of four companions. The intention of Herodes was that when the Feast of Passover was past, Petrus’ case would be tried [lit., sat upon] in the eyes of the people and he would be condemned to death.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “After Petros was seized, he was commanded by the king to be imprisoned. Four groups of soldiers he commanded to guard Petros, four in each group. Herod planned that just after that celebration of the Yahudi, he would bring Petros out to the people to be judged.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And after Peter was arrested, Herod had him put in prison and turned him over to four groups of soldiers who would be the ones to guard him. Now there were four soldiers in each group. Herod thought that after the feast which is called the Feast of Passing By, he would investigate Peter in front of the Jews.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “When Pedro then was arrested, Herod had-him-jailed and he had-him-guarded by sixteen soldiers who were four-each taking-turns, because his plan was to judge and have-him -killed being spectated by the many-people when the fiesta was done.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “after arresting him, he just imprisoned him. He committed him to the soldiers, who would guard Pedro four by four. For Herodes was thinking, when that fiesta was finished, he would then cause Pedro to stand in the presence of the crowd of Jews and he would then sentence/judge him.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Acts 12:4

After his arrest Peter was put in jail represents “whom also having arrested he put in prison.” The reader has no difficulty in understanding that Herod is the one who made the arrest; but inasmuch as a parenthetical statement has intervened since the last mention of Peter by name, it seems best to make “whom” explicit, that is, Peter.

Four groups of four soldiers each is the meaning of the Greek phrase (see New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible, Dios Habla Hoy, La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond révisée, Zürcher Bibel), but it is made clear by the Revised Standard Version and New American Bible (“four squads of soldiers”). One group of four men would be on guard duty for three hours, followed by the other groups who also would be on duty for periods of three hours each. Peter was chained to two of these guards, and evidently the two others stood on duty at the gate.

In rendering four groups of four soldiers each one may say “four groups of soldiers guarded him successively. Each group contained four soldiers.” Or “… one group after another. Each….”

Herod planned translates the participle “planning,” which a Greek reader could immediately recognize as referring back to Herod, but this is not immediately clear to the English reader, so the Good News Translation has made it explicit. Moreover, in order to avoid a long and complicated sentence structure, the Good News Translation has begun a new sentence here. Luke’s literal expression “to bring him out to the people” should probably be taken in the sense of “to put him on public trial” (so Barclay; also Jerusalem Bible “to try Peter in public”). In some languages this public trial of Peter can be rendered as “bring him out of jail so the people could condemn him to death” or “cause him to be tried where everybody could listen to his being condemned to death.”

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 .