The Greek and Hebrew that is translated in English as “grain” (or: “wheat”) is translated in Kui as “(unthreshed) rice.” Helen Evans (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. ) explains: “Padddy [unthreshed rice] is the main crop of the country and rice the staple diet of the people, besides which [grain] is unknown and there is no word for it, and it seemed to us that paddy and rice in the mind of the Kui people stood for all that corn meant to the Jews.” “Paddy” is also the translation in Pa’o Karen (source: Gordon Luce in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 153f. ).
Other translations include: “wheat” (Teutila Cuicatec), “corn” (Lalana Chinantec), “things to eat” (Morelos Nahuatl), “grass corn” (wheat) (Chichimeca-Jonaz) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), “millet” (Lambya) (source: project-specific notes in Paratext), “food” (Nyamwezi) (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext) or ntimumma lujia / “seeds for food” (Lokạạ — “since Lokạạ does not have specific terms for maize and rice that can be described as grains”) (source: J.A. Naudé, C.L. Miller Naudé, J.O. Obono in Acta Theologica 43/2, 2023, p. 129ff. )
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “sell” in English is translated in Noongar as wort-bangal or “away-barter.” Note that “buy” is translated as bangal-barranga or “get-barter.” (Source: Bardip Ruth-Ang 2020)
The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated as “Sabbath” in English is rendered as “day we rest” in Tzotzil, in Mairasi as “Jew’s Rest Day,” in Quiotepec Chinantec as “day when people of Israel rested,” in Shilluk as “day of God,” in Obolo as Usen Mbuban or “Holy Day,” and in Mandarin Chinese as ānxírì (安息日) or “rest day” (literally: “peace – rest – day”). (Sources: Tzotzil: Marion Cowan in Notes on Translation with Drill, p. 169ff; Mairasi: Enggavoter 2004; Quiotepec Chinantec: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.; Shilluk: Nida 1964, p. 237; Obolo: Enene Enene; Chinese: Jost Zetzsche)
In Matumbi it is translated as Sabato ya Ayahudi or “Sabbath of the Jews,” to distinguish it from the Islamic Sabbath (which is Friday) or the Christian Sabbath (which is Sunday). (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
In the old Khmer version as well as in the first new translation this term was rendered as “day of rest” (Thngai Chhup Somrak / ថ្ងៃឈប់សំរាក). Considered inadequate to convey its religious meaning (not only about cessation of work, but also in honor of Yahweh as the Creator), the committee for the Today’s Khmer Version (publ. 2005) decided to keep the Hebrew word and use its transliterated form Thgnai Sabath (ថ្ងៃសប្ប័ទ). “The Buddhist word Thngai Seil ‘day of merits’ used by some Catholics was once under consideration but was rejected because it did not receive unanimous support.” (Source: Joseph Hong in The Bible Translator 1996, p. 233ff. )
In Spanish, the translation is either día de reposo (“day of rest”) or sábado (usually: “Saturday,” derived from the Greek and Hebrew original). Nida (1947, p. 239f.) explains that problem for Spanish and other languages in its sphere of influence: “In translation ‘Sabbath’ into various aboriginal languages of Latin America, a considerable number of translators have used the Spanish sábado, ‘Saturday,’ because it is derived from the Hebrew sabbath and seems to correspond to English usage as well. The difficulty is that sábado means only ‘Saturday’ for most people. There is no religious significance about this word as the is with ‘Sabbath’ in English. Accordingly the [readers] cannot understand the significance of the persecution of Jesus because he worked on ‘Saturday.’ It has been found quite advantageous to use the translation ‘day of rest,’ for this accurately translated the Hebrew meaning of the term and resolves the problem in connection with the prohibitions placed upon some types of activities.”
In the Nueva traducción viviente translation (2010) it día de descanso al mantenerlo santo (“day of rest to keep it holy”). (Source: Lénart de Regt in The Bible Translator 2017, p. 131ff. )
In French Sign Language it is translated with a sign that depicts closing of the blinds of a store:
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, the Jarai and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the inclusive pronoun, including everyone.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Amos 8:5:
Kupsabiny: “You are saying, ‘When will the new moon festival be over so that we can go and sell our food? When will the day of Sabbath be over so we can go and sell our wheat? We want to squeeze the things we use to measure with so that we can sell our things for a high price.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “You say, "We can’t wait for the New Moon holy day to finish, so that we can sell our grain. We can’t wait for the Sabbath to end, so that we can sell wheat? we can cheat by making measuring vessels smaller and leads heavier and using false scales.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “You (plur.) are in-a-hurry that the Feast of the New Moon or the Rest Day will-be-finished so-that you (plur.) can- now -sell grains and can-cheat when you (plur.) measure-liquid-and-dry-goods, measure-the-length/size, measure-the-volume-and-weight” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “You habitually say, ‘We wish that the new moon festival would end soon, in order that restrictions on doing business during the festival will be ended and we can sell grain. We wish that the Sabbath would end soon, in order that we will again be permitted to sell our wheat’— and when you sell it, you charge a big price for it, and you cheat people by using scales that do not weigh correctly.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Two kinds of wild wheat have grown in the open deciduous oak woodland in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent for several thousand years: Einkorn Wheat Triticum monococcum and Emmer Wheat Triticum dicoccum. Both came into cultivation together with barley. Just before the time of the Romans, the Naked Bread Wheat or Hard Wheat Triticum durum started replacing the hulled varieties. This then became the favorite type of wheat for bread and macaroni. Spelt is a sub-member of the Triticum aestivum species.
In New Revised Standard Version, updated edition and some other versions, the generic Hebrew word bar has been rendered “wheat” in Jeremiah 23:28 et al. This is legitimate, since the grain referred to by bar was probably wheat. However, it might be better to say “grain” in these passages.
The most important early wheat for the Israelites was emmer, probably the only wheat known in Egypt, and referred to in Hebrew as chittah. However, according to Hepper (Baker Encyclopedia of Bible Plants: Flowers and Trees, Fruits and Vegetables, Ecology. Baker Book House, 1992), the seven-headed wheat of the Egyptian king’s dream (Genesis 41:5ff.) suggests that there may also have been Triticum turgidum (rivet wheat) in the emmer group. The Hebrew word kusemeth probably refers to a type of emmer wheat that the Egyptians called swt.
Wheat is a type of grass like rice and barley, growing to around 75 centimeters (2.5 feet) in height and having a head with many small grains in rows.
Bread made from wheat was the staple food for the people of ancient Israel, so God punished them by breaking “the staff of bread” (see, for example, Ezekiel 4:16).
If wheat is unfamiliar, translators can transliterate from a major language in non-rhetorical contexts (for example, English witi, Portuguese trigo, French ble or froment, Swahili ngano, Arabic kama/alkama). The transliteration may add a generic tag such as “grain.” The New Testament passages are mostly rhetorical, opening the possibility for a metaphorical equivalent.
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
Saying/You say to yourselves. Although you say to yourselves (so also The Translator’s Old Testament) may be a good solution in some languages, in others it is impossible to speak to oneself, and the translation may have to be “you think” or “you say.” If only part of the quotation is translated as a question, care must be taken with such a specific verb as “to ask” (so New American Bible). On the other hand, if there is a word like “mutter” (Moffatt) or “say in secret,” that would be good.
When will … be over/We can hardly wait … to be over. The choice between question or statement was discussed in 8.5-6. It depends on what is effective in the language of the translation. The important thing is for the reader to feel the impatience of the merchants without having to depend on tone of voice, etc. It may be best to make this impatience explicit in the translation: we can hardly wait, “you can’t wait.”
New moon/holy days. In many cultural situations it will be possible to say new moon in the translation although it may also be necessary to show that it is a “feast”: “the feast of the new moon.” Even if a feast of the new moon is not known, in some cases people will easily understand that certain activity was forbidden on such feast days, and they will not need a general description such as holy days (not to be confused in English with holidays!).
That we may sell grain? And the sabbath, that we may offer (Hebrew: open) wheat for sale/so that we can sell our grain. When will the Sabbath end, so that we can start selling again? The Hebrew picture is that of opening the storehouse where the wheat is kept: “that we may open our storehouses/shops to sell wheat” or simply “that we can start selling wheat again.” Generally, it is better to translate sabbath with “rest day” or “day for resting,” which has the advantage of making a meaningful contrast in this particular passage. In some languages there is difficulty with the similarity of this question to the question just above. Good News Translation has not mentioned “grain” or “wheat” the second time. Some translations may need to combine the two questions, or emphasize different features of them. For example, “… to open our shops … to sell our wheat.”
In some translations it would be best to move the end of verse 6 (and sell the refuse of the wheat) here for smoothness of the flow of ideas (see 8.5). What is done will depend on the way in which the first half of verse 5 was translated. It may be possible to say, for example, “that we may open our storehouses in order to sell the refuse of wheat (or: worthless wheat),” “that we can start selling grain again, even the refuse of wheat.” However, this solution does not emphasize the picture as much as the final balanced position in Hebrew emphasizes it, and some stronger wording might be better, like Good News TranslationWe can sell worthless wheat at a high price or “You even take what you sweep from the floor of the wheat bin and sell it to the hungry at a high price.” Of course, if the end of verse 6 is moved here, verses 5-6 should be numbered together.
That we may make the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances (Hebrew: to twist the balances of falsehood)/Then we can overcharge, use false measures, and fix the scales to cheat our customers. The ephah was a measure of capacity. It was changed in one way or another so that the customer did not get all he should get. In the time of Amos money was unknown. So the shekel, a weight of limestone (probably about 11 grams) was used to weigh bars, rings, etc. of valuable metal which were used in commerce. When the weight of the shekel was enlarged in one way or another, the price the customer had to pay was too high.
The important part of the meaning is not in the particular measure and weight, but in the examples of cheating. So there is no need to keep the difficult terms ephah and shekel in the translation. Possibilities include “measures” (compare Moffatt, Good News Translation) and “weights” (Moffatt) or some cultural equivalent for ephah (compare New English Bible: “giving short measure in the bushel”); the effect of the cheating with the shekel can be indicated: “too high a price.” For example, “Then we make the measures (or cultural equivalent) small and the price of things big.”
A third possibility of cheating customers was in using false balances. One of the scales was made heavier or the beam was twisted so that the balance became false: fix the scales to cheat or “cheat by tampering with the scales” (Moffatt), etc.
In a culture where standardized measures, weights, and balances are not known, or not all known, some of these pictures may have to be combined into general expressions of cheating, or there may be some equivalent idiom or picture in the language.
Quoted with permission from de Waard, Jan & Smalley, William A. A Handbook on Amos. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1979. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.