cherub

Some key biblical terms that were directly transliterated from the Hebrew have ended up with unforeseen meanings in the lexicons of various recipient languages.

Take, for example, the English word “cherub,” from Hebrew “kĕrȗb.” Whereas the original Hebrew term meant something like “angelic being that is represented as part human, part animal” (…), the English word now means something like “a person, especially a child, with an innocent or chubby face.” Semantic shift has been conditioned in English by the Renaissance artistic tradition that portrayed cherubim in the guise of cute little Greek cupids. This development was of course impossible to foresee at the time when the first English translations borrowed this Hebrew word into the English Bible tradition, following the pattern of borrowing set by the Greek and Latin translations of the Old Testament.

In Russian, the semantic shift of this transliteration was somewhat different: the -îm ending of “kĕrūbîm,” originally signifying plurality in Hebrew, has been reanalyzed as merely the final part of the lexical item, so that the term херувим (kheruvim) in Russian is a singular count noun, not a plural one. (A similar degrammaticalization is seen in English writers who render the Hebrew plural kĕrūbîm as “cherubims.”) Apparently, this degrammaticalization of the Hebrew ending is what led the Russian Synodal translator of Genesis 3:24 to mistakenly render the Hebrew as saying that the Lord God placed a kheruvim (accusative masculine singular in Russian) to the east of the garden of Eden, instead of indicating a plural number of such beings. (Source: Vitaly Voinov in The Bible Translator 2012, p. 17ff. )

In Ngäbere the Hebrew that is translated in English as “cherub” is translated as “heavenly guard” (source: J. Loewen 1980, p. 107), in Nyamwezi as v’amalaika v’akelubi or “Cherubim-Angel” to add clarity, in Vidunda as “winged creature,” in Makonde as “winged creature from heaven” (source for this and two before: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext), in Bura-Pabir as “good spirit with wings,” and in Northern Pashto it is either translated as “heavenly creature” (Afghan Pashto Bible, publ. 2023) or “winged creature” (Holy Bible in Pakistani [Yousafzai] Pashto, publ. 2020) (source for Bura-Pabir and Northern Pashto: Andy Warren-Rothlin).

In French Sign Language it is translated with a sign that combines “angel” and “spinning sword” (referring to Genesis 3:24):


“Cherub” in French Sign Language (source: La Bible en langue des signes française )

See also seraph and ark of the covenant.

bless(ed)

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The Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Ge’ez, and Aramaic that is translated into English as “(to) bless” or “blessed” is translated into a wide variety of possibilities.

The Hebrew term barak (and the Aramaic term berak) also (and originally) means “kneel” (a meaning which the word has retained — see Gen. 24:11) and can be used for God blessing people (or things), people blessing each other, or people blessing God. While English Bible translators have not seen a stumbling block in always using the same term (“bless” in its various forms), other languages need to make distinctions (see below).

In Bari, spoken in South Sudan, the connection between blessing and knees/legs is still apparent. For Genesis 30:30 (in English: “the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned”), Bari uses a common expression that says (much like the Hebrew), ‘… blessed you to my feet.'” (Source: P. Guillebaud in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 189ff. .)

Other examples for the translation of “bless” when God is the one who blesses include (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight):

  • “think well of” (San Blas Kuna)
  • “speak good to” (Amganad Ifugao)
  • “make happy” (Pohnpeian)
  • “cause-to-live-as-a-chief” (Zulu)
  • “sprinkle with a propitious (lit. cool) face” (a poetic expression occurring in the priests’ language) (Toraja Sa’dan) (source for this and above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • “give good things” (Mairasi) (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • “ask good” (Yakan) (source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • “praise, say good things” (Central Yupik) (source: Robert Bascom)
  • “greatly love” (Candoshi-Shapra) (source: John C. Tuggy)
  • “showing a good heart” (Kutu) (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
  • “good luck — have — good fortune — have” (verbatim) ꓶꓼ ꓙꓳ ꓫꓱꓹ ꓙꓳ — ɯa dzho shes zho (Lisu). This construction follows a traditional four-couplet construct in oral Lisu poetry that is usually in the form ABAC or ABCB. (Source: Arrington 2020, p. 58)
  • wodala — denoting a person who is considered fortunate because he/she has something good that the majority of people do not have. It also acknowledges someone as a causative agent behind “being blessed.” (Chichewa) (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

In Tagbanwa a phrase is used for both the blessing done by people and God that back-translates to “caused to be pierced by words causing grace/favor” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation) and in Benabena a term denoted “good spell” or “good magic” (source: Renck 1990, p. 112).

Ixcatlán Mazatec had to select a separate term when relating “to people ‘blessing’ God” (or things of God): “praise(d)” or “give thanks for” (in 1 Cor. 10:16) (“as it is humans doing the ‘blessing’ and people do not bless the things of God or God himself the way God blesses people” — source: Robert Bascom). Eastern Bru and Kui also use “praise” for this a God-directed blessing (source: Bru back translation and Helen Evans in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. ) and Uma uses “appropriate/worthy to be worshipped” (source: Uma back translation).

When related to someone who is blessing someone else, it is translated into Tsou as “speak good hopes for.” In Waiwai it is translated as “may God be good and kind to you now.” (Sources: Peng Kuo-Wei for Tsou and Robert Hawkins in The Bible Translator 1962, pp. 164ff. for Waiwai.)

Some languages associate an expression that originally means “spitting” or “saliva” with blessing. The Bantu language Koonzime, for instance, uses that expression for “blessing” in their translation coming from either God or man. Traditionally, the term was used in an application of blessing by an aged superior upon a younger inferior, often in relation to a desire for fertility, or in a ritualistic, but not actually performed spitting past the back of the hand. The spitting of saliva has the effect of giving that person “tenderness of face,” which can be translated as “blessedness.” (Source: Keith Beavon)

Martin Ehrensvärd, one of the translators for the Danish Bibelen 2020, comments on the translation of this term: “As for ‘blessing’, in the end we in most instances actually kept the word, after initially preferring the expression ‘giving life strength’. The backlash against dropping the word blessing was too hard. But we would often add a few words to help the reader understand what the word means in a given context — people often understand it to refer more to a spiritual connection with God, but in the Hebrew texts, it usually has to do with material things or good health or many children. So when e.g. in Isaiah 19:25 the Hebrew text says ‘God bless them’, we say ‘God bless them’ and we add: ‘and give them strength’. ‘And give them strength’ is not found in the overt Hebrew text, but we are again making explicit what we believe is the meaning so as to avoid misunderstanding.” (Source: Ehrensvärd in HIPHIL Novum 8/2023, p. 81ff. )

See also bless (food and drink), blessed (Christ in Mark 11:9), and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.

See also “Blessed by ‘The Blessing’ in the World’s Indigenous Languages” and Multilingual version of “The Blessing” based on Numbers 6:24-26 .

The Hymn of Creation

The following is a contemporary stained glass window depicting the prayer of praise and thanksgiving offered by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the Catholic Church of the Resurrection in Bryanston, New Zealand:

Photo by Catholic Church of the Resurrection in Bryanston

The Hymn of Creation: Bless the Lord all you creatures of Earth — Daniel 3:57 – 88 [or Prayer of Azar 1:29 – 1:67]. In this window all creation is gathered into a great hymn of praise to its Creator. Poet GM Hopkins once wrote ‘The world is charged with the Glory of God!’ Significantly, this window is positioned in the side chapel of the church where each day, Mass is celebrated — Christ’s all-embracing sacrifice, in which we share as priests of creation and which the Creator has entrusted to our care. (Source: Catholic Church of the Resurrection in Bryanston )

Stained glass is not just highly decorative, it’s a medium which has been used to express important religious messages for centuries. Literacy was not widespread in the medieval and Renaissance periods and the Church used stained glass and other artworks to teach the central beliefs of Christianity. In Gothic churches, the windows were filled with extensive narrative scenes in stained glass — like huge and colorful picture storybooks — in which worshipers could ‘read’ the stories of Christ and the saints and learn what was required for their religious salvation. (Source: Victoria and Albert Museum

addressing God

Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.

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Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.

As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.

In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.

Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”

In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.

Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)

In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”

In Dutch, Afrikaans, Gronings, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.

See also formal pronoun: disciples addressing Jesus, female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.

Translation commentary on The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men 1:32

If integrated into the book of Daniel: 3.53 and 55

Note here an unusual complication in the verse numbering. Verses 31, 32, and 33 in Good News Translation and Revised Standard Version correspond to verses 53, 55, and 54 of Dan 3 respectively in New American Bible and New Jerusalem Bible. In the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, verses 32 and 33 of Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation are reversed, and the two Catholic translations New American Bible and New Jerusalem Bible follow this traditional order. The text makes good sense in either order, and translators may follow whatever versification they are comfortable with. Those translating this passage as part of the canonical Daniel may wish to use the order of New American Bible and New Jerusalem Bible. Those translating it as part of the Apocrypha have no reason to reverse the order. (A further word may help those who are following the Greek text, for it gets more complicated. In Rahlfs’ Greek text, the Theodotion text at the bottom of the page numbers the verses 53, 55, 54. Rahlfs is not altering Theodotion’s Greek text. He is giving each verse the number it has been traditionally given in the Septuagint and Vulgate. In the Göttingen Greek text, the text is the same as in Rahlfs, but it gives the numbers as 53, 54, 55. This means that 54 in Göttingen is 55 in Rahlfs, and 55 in Göttingen is 54 in Rahlfs.) Translators have to be careful here, since Good News Translation has joined verses 31 and 32a into one long sentence. This option is not open to those following the verse numbering of New American Bible and New Jerusalem Bible.

Another issue affecting the approach to these three verses is that it is not clear whether the author is thinking of God’s heavenly temple and throne, as in Psa 11.4 and Hab 2.20, or of the temple in Jerusalem. Verse 62 would suggest that at the time of writing, the temple is in use and the priests are at work, while verse 15 is clear that this is not so. But this comparison may mean nothing, since it is possible that each of these two passages is from a different time, and that the passage under discussion here has a separate time of origin. The reference in verse 32 to God looking down on the great abyss is a strong indication that we are thinking here of the heavenly temple.

Since Good News Translation combines verses 31 and 32a into one sentence, these two verses will be discussed together. It may be helpful to view Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation in parallel to observe Good News Translation‘s restructuring for these verses:

to be extolled — May hymns be sung
highly glorified — to your glory forever
thou … thy holy glory — and may your holy presence
blessed — be praised
in the temple — in that temple
who sittest — where you sit on your heavenly throne
upon cherubim — above the winged creatures
and lookest upon the deeps — and look down to the world of the dead
to be praised and highly exalted — May you be praised and honored
for ever — forever

Blessed art thou in the temple of thy holy glory: The Old Testament speaks of God’s glory filling the temple (see 2 Chr 7.1-2; Psa 26.8; 63.2). Good News Translation renders this line as “may your holy presence be praised in that temple,” and Contemporary English Version has “let songs of praise be sung in your holy temple.” Both these versions are slightly clearer than Revised Standard Version. But in many languages it will be necessary to make it clear that holy simply stresses that the glory (power, majesty) belongs to God. An alternative translation model is “May they [the heavenly chorus] praise you up there in your glorious temple in heaven.”

To be extolled and highly glorified for ever: Good News Translation “May hymns be sung to your glory forever” is a possible translation. The Greek very clearly carries the idea of hymns being sung. But “to your glory” is a difficult concept. An alternative model is “May they sing hymns telling you forever how great you are.”

Who sittest upon cherubim: See 1 Sam 4.4; 2 Sam 6.2; and Psa 80.1, and compare Psa 18.10. Cherubim (the singular is “cherub”) were imaginary creatures symbolizing God’s awesome holiness. The ark of the covenant (Good News Translation “covenant box”) was fashioned with cherubim on either end; see Exo 25.18-22. The ark was thought of as representing God’s throne. To describe God as seated upon the cherubim is to say that he is on his royal throne. In both Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version cherubim is rendered “winged creatures,” but in some languages a literal translation of this term would seem to refer to “birds” or “winged insects.” In such cases it will be helpful to transliterate cherubim and supply a footnote or glossary item describing these creatures. “On your heavenly throne” (Good News Translation) and “There, from your throne” (Contemporary English Version) are supplied to explain how it is that God is sitting above winged creatures. It anticipates verse 33, and assumes that the temple in question here is the heavenly temple and not the building in Jerusalem (see the comments above).

Lookest upon the deeps: The Greek word translated the deeps here is used in the Greek Old Testament with several meanings. Good News Translation takes it as an equivalent to Sheol, “the world of the dead.” It is used this way in Psa 71.20 (70.20 in Greek), where Revised Standard Version has “the depths”; compare our verse here with Psa 139.8. However, this word usually refers to the seas and oceans (Job 28.14; 38.16). Good News Translation could be altered to bear this meaning as follows: “look down into the depths of the seas.”

And to be praised and highly exalted forever: Compare the last lines of verses 30 and 31. The line here is simply another way of saying what is said there.

An alternative translation model for verses 31-32 is:

• May they praise you up there in your glorious temple in heaven.
May they sing hymns praising you forever.
There, where you sit on your throne above the cherubim,
you look down into the depths [or, bottoms] of the seas.
May you be praised and honored forever.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.