amazed / astonished / marvel

Click here to view graphically

The Greek that is translated as “astonished” or “amazed” or “marvel” in English is translated in Pwo Karen as “stand up very tall.” (In John 5:20, source: David Clark)

Elsewhere it is translated as “confusing the inside of the head” (Mende), “shiver in the liver” (Uduk, Laka), “to lose one’s heart” (Mískito, Tzotzil), “to shake” (Southern Bobo Madaré), “to be with mouth open” (Panao Huánuco Quechua) (source: Bratcher / Nida), “to stand with your mouth open” (Citak) (source: Stringer 2007, p. 120), “ceasing to think with the heart” (Bulu), “surprise in the heart” (Yamba) (source for this and one above: W. Reyburn in The Bible Translator 1959, p. 1ff. ), or “have one’s mouth full” (Maan (source: Don Slager).

In Mark 5:20 and elsewhere where the astonishment is a response to listening to Jesus, the translation is “listen quietly” in Central Tarahumara, “forget listening” (because they were so absorbed in what they heard that they forgot everything else) in San Miguel El Grande Mixtec, “it was considered very strange by them” in Tzeltal (source: Bratcher / Nida), “in glad amazement” (to distinguish it from other kinds of amazement) (Quetzaltepec Mixe) (source: Robert Bascom), or “breath evaporated (or “escaped”)” (Mairasi) (source: Enngavoter 2004).

In Western Dani astonishment is emphasized with direct speech. In Mark 1:22, for instance, it says: “Wi!” yinuk, pi wareegwaarak — “They were all amazed, saying ‘Oh'” (source: Lourens De Vries in The Bible Translator 1992, p. 333ff. )

In Low German it is translated as grote Oken maken or “make big eyes” (sometime followed by: un kreegn dat Stillswiegen: “and became silent”) (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006).

In the Kölsch translation (Boch 2017) it is translated as brummte de Lück de Kopp or “the heads of the people buzzed,” Bauklötz jestaunt, lit. “marvel toy blocks,” and vür Staune de Muhl nit mieh zojekräch or “so full of marvel that they couldn’t close their mouths again.”

In the Pfälzisch translation by Walter Sauer (publ. 2012) it is often translated as baff vor staune or “speechless because of their marvel.” (Source: Jost Zetzsche)

See also amazed and astonished, astonished (Mark 6:51), and I’m astonished.

confused / dismayed

In Gbaya, the notion of confusion or dismay is emphasized in the referenced verses with yelem, an ideophone that expresses becoming confused, not knowing what to think.

Note that for 1 Maccabees 10:74 the Gbaya translators interpreted along the lines of the French Traduction œcuménique de la Bible which has “he was completely shaken by it” ( il en fut tout ébranlé) instead of the New Revised Standard Version, updated edition‘s “his spirit was aroused.”

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

complete verse (Acts 2:12)

Following are a number of back-translations of Acts 2:12:

  • Uma: “They were all surprised and confused, and they asked one another, they said: ‘What do you think really is the meaning of this?'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “They were greatly amazed and they were confused/perplexed that’s why they asked each other, they said, ‘What does this mean?'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And all the people there, they were very surprised because they didn’t understand what was going on, and it couldn’t be finished, their asking each other, ‘What might this be?'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “What does this mean to say?’ they said, questioning-each-other, because they were extremely amazed and their thinking-about-it was difficult.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “All of them there, they were really amazed and their minds/thinking were agitated. They were saying, ‘What does this mean?'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Acts 2:12

The verbal expressions amazed and confused pick up the theme introduced at the beginning of verse 7 and can be related to the following verb of speaking as a cause, for example, “because they were thus so amazed and confused, they all asked one another repeatedly (or kept asking one another), What does this mean?”

In some languages, a verb “to mean” is not easy to find, especially one with such a wide range of meaning as the English verb mean. Rather, one must often employ terms, which contain the same components, but with somewhat different orientations, for example, “What does all this say?” “How are we to understand all this?” “How can we explain this?” or “What does all this teach?”

There are always plenty of terms for derision, for example, “made fun of,” “mocked,” “laughed at,” or “made jokes about.” In some languages derision is expressed by reference to certain facial or body gestures, for example, “their heads moved up and down,” “they moved their heads back and forth,” or “they raised their noses at.”

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 .

SIL Translator’s Notes on Acts 2:12

2:12a

Astounded: The tense of the Greek verb for Astounded indicates that they continued to be amazed for some time.

perplexed: This word means “puzzled.” They heard and understood the words spoken in this miracle of languages, but were puzzled over the significance of the miracle. So they did not know what to think or do about it. The tense of the Greek verb for perplexed indicates that they continued to be perplexed for some time. Here are some other ways to translate this word:

puzzled (God’s Word)
-or-
did not know what to make of it (Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)

2:12b

they: The word they refers to some of the crowd, because others of them had an insulting explanation (2:13).

asked: The Greek tense indicates that they asked more than once. The question was asked more than once because no one had a good answer.

What does this mean?: The Greek is literally “What does this want to be?” It is an idiom that indicates that they did not know what the miracle meant but hoped that its meaning would become clear.

This is probably a real question. They wanted to understand the significance of the miracle.

© 2001, 2021 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.