complete verse (Acts 5:7)

Following are a number of back-translations of Acts 5:7:

  • Uma: “About three hours after that, the wife of Ananias also came to Petrus. But she did not know what had happened earlier.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “After about three hours, the wife of Ananiyas arrived but she did not know what had happened.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “About three hours after that, the wife of Ananias came in. She did not yet know what happened to Ananias.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “After three hours went by, his spouse also arrived, but she did not yet know what had happened.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Well, before long, about three hours, the wife of Ananias arrived who was following-later. She had no idea what had happened to her husband.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Acts 5:7

There is a subtle difficulty in the rendering of came in since the previous paragraph does not specify where the apostles were at the time that Ananias presented the money and died. In some languages it is necessary to make the indication of place quite specific and therefore must sometimes be rendered as “came into the room where Peter was” or “came to the place where Peter was.”

Such a general phrase as what had happened must often be made more specific, for example, “what had happened to her husband” or “that Ananias had died.”

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 5:7

Paragraph 5:7–11

5:7a

About three hours later: People in that place and time counted twelve hours from sunrise to sunset. The actual amount of time between sunrise and sunset could be shorter or longer, depending on the time of year. But three hours would be one-quarter of the daylight time. (This would be, for example, from the sun being half way up to it being fully up at the middle of the day. But in these verses we do not know when in the day this time began.)

Some languages do not count the time in a day by hours. If that is true in your language, you may want to:

• Refer to the amount of daytime. For example:

About a quarter of the daytime later

• Use the major language word for hours. For example:

About 3 awa later

his wife also: The word his refers to Ananias.

came in: Both “carried…out” (5:6b) and came in imply that Peter was in a building. The Greek does not tell us or imply what kind of building. (It was probably not any building in the temple area.)

If your language must say into what thing that Sapphira came, refer in general to a building. For example:

came into ⌊the building⌋

5:7b

unaware of what had happened: Sapphira did not know that her husband had died. Here is another way to translate this:

but she did not know what had happened

what had happened: This refers to Ananias dying.

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