mistreat and stone

The Greek in Acts 14:5 that is translated into English as “mistreat them and stone them” or something similar is is translated in Quetzaltepec Mixe with the existing idiomatic expression “whip and stone.”

gentiles / nations

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The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).

Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).

In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

See also nations.

complete verse (Acts 14:5)

Following are a number of back-translations of Acts 14:5:

  • Uma: “Finally the people who were not Yahudi people and the Yahudi people with their leaders also, made plans wanting to persecute and stone Paulus and Barnabas.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Then the people of other tribes and the Yahudi together with their leaders planned-agreed that they would maltreat/inflict-pain and stone Paul and company.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Now the Jews and their leaders and some of their companions who were not Jews, they decided that they would treat badly and throw stones at the apostles.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “When that was so, the Jews and Gentiles and their leaders agreed-together to mistreat and throw-stones at them so they would die.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “When it was like that, what those Jews did was, together with their leaders and others who weren’t Jews, they agreed together to persecute without mercy those two apostles and even stone them.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Acts 14:5

This verse is rendered quite differently by various translators, primarily because of different interpretations given to one word. The only other place in the New Testament where this particular word occurs is in James 3.4, and it is agreed there that it means something like “intention,” “purpose,” or “desire.” The Good News Translation has translated this noun, together with the verb “happened,” as meaning decided, while most translators employ something like “a movement arose.” Phillips qualifies the movement as “hostile movement,” basing his translation either on the original meaning of this word or else on the following events. As the context makes clear, the word indicates the formulation of a plan to kill the apostles and not the actual realization of this plan.

With their leaders may refer either to the Jews, or to the Gentiles and Jews. In the former case the leaders would be the leaders of the synagogue, and in the latter case the city officials (see New English Bible “city authorities”). “Insult” (Phillips) is a possible translation of what the authorities decided to do to the apostles; however, mistreat (Revised Standard Version “molest”) seems much better in the present context, because the implication is that they wanted to brings physical injury to the apostles.

The phrase together with their leaders may be translated either as “their leaders also approved” or “their leaders also joined with them.” As noted above, their may refer either to the Jews or to both the Jews and the Gentiles.

To mistreat is in most languages “to harm physically,” “to damage them,” or “to wound them.” This is in keeping with the last expression stone them, which in many languages is literally “kill them by throwing stones at them.”

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 .