The Greek in Ephesians 1:6 that is translated as “Beloved” or similar in English is translated in Ngbaka as “Son of his heart” (in the 1995 inter-confessional version). (Source: Bruce Moore in: Notes on Translation 1/1992, p. 1ff.)
This passive construct is translated in Mokole as “his son, the one whose love is all in himself.” Mokole grammar doesn’t know a passive voice and the translation has to therefore render anything that is passive in the Hebrew or Greek text with a grammatical subject. (Source: Hilary Deneufchâtel in Le Sycomore 17/1, 2024, p. 21ff. )
“The Greek word charis, usually translated by English ‘grace,’ is one of the desperations of translators. The area of meaning is exceptionally extensive. Note the following possible meanings for this word in various contexts of the New Testament: ‘sweetness,’ ‘charm,’ ‘loveliness,’ ‘good-will,’ ‘loving-kindness,’ ‘favor,’ ‘merciful kindness,’ ‘benefit,’ ‘gift,’ ‘benefaction,’ ‘bounty,’ and ‘thanks.’ The theological definition of ‘unmerited favor’ (some translators have attempted to employ this throughout) is applicable to only certain contexts. Moreover, it is quite a task to find some native expression which will represent the meaning of ‘unmerited favor.’ In some languages it is impossible to differentiate between ‘grace’ and ‘kindness.’ In fact, the translation ‘kindness’ is in some cases quite applicable. In other languages, a translation of ‘grace’ is inseparable from ‘goodness.’ In San Miguel El Grande Mixtec a very remarkable word has been used for ‘grace.’ It is made up of three elements. The first of these is a prefixial abstractor. The second is the stem for ‘beauty.’ The third is a suffix which indicates that the preceding elements are psychologically significant. The resultant word may be approximately defined as ‘the abstract quality of beauty of personality.’” (Source: Nida 1947, p. 223)
Other translations include (click or tap here to see more):
Inuktitut: “God’s kindness that enables us” (source: Andrew Atagotaaluk)
Nukna: “God gave his insides to one.” (“The ‘insides’ are the seat of emotion in Nukna, like the heart in the English language. To give your insides to someone is to feel love toward them, to want what is best for them, and to do good things for them.” (Source: Matt Taylor in The PNG Experience )
Uma: “(God’s) white insides” (source: Uma Back Translation)
the Germandas Buch translation by Roland Werner (publ. 2009-2022) uses a large variety of translations, including “undeserved friendliness,” “wonderful work of God,” “loving attention,” “generous,” but also “undeserved grace” (using the traditional German term Gnade)
In Latvian the term žēlastība is used both for “grace” and steadfast love. It is also often used as a synonym for “mercy.” (Source: Katie Roth)
In the Contemporary Chichewa translation (2002/2016) and the Buku Lopatulika version (1922/2018) it is translated with chisomo. This word was earlier used to refer to a charm that people were using for others to like them. It meant that on his/her own, a person would not be qualified to be liked by people. But with this charm, people would look at that person more kindly. This is also used in a number of Old Testament passages for what is typically translated as “find favor” or “gracious” in English, including Exodus 33:12, Numbers 6:25, or Psalm 84:11. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
For Muna, René van den Berg explains the process how the translation team arrived at a satisfactory solution: “Initial translation drafts in Muna tended to (…) use the single word kadawu ‘part, (given) share, gift,’ but this word is really too generic. It lacks the meaning component of mercy and kindness and also seems to imply that the gift is part of a larger whole. Consequently we now [translate] according to context. In wishes and prayers such as ‘Grace to you and peace from God’ we translate ‘grace’ as kabarakati ‘blessing’ (e.g. Gal 1:3). In many places we use kataano lalo ‘goodness of heart’ (e.g. Gal 1:15 ‘because of the goodness of his heart God chose me’) as well as the loan rahamati ‘mercy’ (e.g. ‘you have-turned-your-backs-on the mercy of God’ for ‘you have fallen away from grace’; Gal 5:4). In one case where the unmerited nature of ‘grace’ is in focus, we have also employed katohai ‘a free gift’ (typically food offered to one’s neighbo-1urs) in the same verse. ‘The reason-you-have-been-saved is because of the goodness of God’s heart (Greek charis, Muna kataano lalo), going-through your belief in Kristus. That salvation is not the result of your own work, but really a free-gift (Greek dooron ‘gift’; Muna katohai) of God.’ (Eph 2:8).
In Burmese, it is translated with the Buddhist term kyeh’jooh’tau (ကျေးဇူးတော်). LaSeng Dingrin (in Missiology 37/4, 2009, p. 485ff.) explains: “As regards the Christian term ‘grace,’ Judson [the first translator of the Bible into Burmese] could not have brought the Burmese Buddhists the good news about the redeeming work of Jesus Christ and its benefits (i.e., forgiveness and salvation), without employing the Burmese Buddhist term kyeh’jooh’tau (‘grace’). Deriving from Palikataññuta (“gratefulness”), kyeh’jooh’tau denotes ‘good deeds for others or benefits,’ which occur among humans. (…) When Christianized, kyeh’jooh’tau also refers to the atoning work of Jesus and its benefits, and can occur between humans and God. The word kyeh’jooh’tau looks very Burmese Buddhist, but it is Christian, too, and conveys the core of the Christian proclamation. Furthermore, kyeh’jooh’tau itself shows that translatability of Christianity cannot be imagined without reliance on Buddhism.” (See also the Burmese entry for God)
In American Sign Language it is translated with a sign that combines “compassion” and “giving out.” (Source: Ruth Anna Spooner, Ron Lawer)
“Grace” in American Sign Language, source: Deaf Harbor
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, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the addressee).
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
Following are a number of back-translations of Ephesians 1:6:
Uma: “That is why it is fitting that we praise God, because no kidding the bigness of his love to us. From his grace [lit., white insides] he freely gave us his love from our connection with Yesus, his Child whom he loves.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Let us (incl.) praise God because of his love and mercy which are unspeakable, which is his love and his mercy that he gave to us (incl.) because of what Isa Almasi his beloved Son did.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Let us praise God because of the very powerful kindness which He blessed us with by means of our becoming one with His dear son Jesus.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “So let us praise him because of the amazing mercy/grace which he has shown us who are joined-to/belong-to his Child whom he very-much-loves.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Therefore there is now no end to our praising him because of this far-from-ordinary grace/mercy of his that he gave absolutely-freely, which can be ours because of what Jesu-Cristo did whom he holds very dear.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “We praise God because of this great good he gives to all those who walk with the Son of God whom he loves.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
In Nicholas King’s English translation of the New Testament (2004), the translator decided to use bullet point lists in some case in the Ephesians, Colossians, and Titus. “There are elaborate groups of nouns strung together, and the sentences are rather long. I have tried, not entirely successfully, to make these long sentences more manageable by the use of bullet points.” One such list is Ephesians 1:3-14:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the one who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly regions in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, for us to be holy and unblemished before him in love,
the one who predestined us for adoption-as-sons through Jesus Christ to him, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace with which he graced us in the Beloved,
the one in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions according to the wealth of his grace, which overflowed to us, in all wisdom and understanding,
the one who revealed to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he proposed in him, for the plan for the fullness of times, recapitulating everything in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on earth,
in him in whom we have our lot cast, in accordance with the design of the one who carries out everything, according to the plan of his will, so that we should be for the praise of his glory, we who have been the first to hope in Christ,
in whom you also have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,
in whom you believe, and have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the [God’s] property, to the praise of his glory.
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system, one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and others for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are Twents as well as the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
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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 benefactive construction as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. Here, ataete (与えて) or “give” is used in combination with kudasaru (くださる), a respectful form of the benefactive kureru (くれる). A benefactive reflects the good will of the giver or the gratitude of a recipient of the favor. To convey this connotation, English translation needs to employ a phrase such as “for me (my sake)” or “for you (your sake).”
Without a break the text continues: “for the praise of the glory of his (God’s) grace” (Hdb|fig:Table_EPH1-3.jpg). A variation of this is found also in verses 12a, 14c. This is the final result of God’s salvation through Christ: his people will praise him. The expression Let us praise is not a request for permission but a kind of exhortation and is equivalent in many languages to an expression of obligation, for example, “we should praise” or “we must praise.”
The word “glory” is used in the Bible to describe the manifestation of God’s presence with his people, his saving presence, his redemptive power. It is usually described in terms of a brilliant light (see Exo 16.10; 1 Kgs 8.10-11; Ezek 10.3-4; Col 1.11).
In the New Testament the word grace refers to God’s uncaused, unmerited, unconditioned love (see 1.2).
The phrase “the glory of his grace” can be taken to mean “the glorious manifestation/revelation of his unmerited love” (compare Twentieth Century New Testament “the glorious manifestation of his loving-kindness”). But it is possible also to take the phrase as meaning his glorious grace (Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, and others).
In a number of languages grace must be expressed as an event and as such is normally a verb phrase such as “showed kindness” or “showed goodness to” or “was good to because of his love” or “loved and was good to”; but it may then be difficult to introduce the qualifying word glorious. This can sometimes be done by a phrase, for example, “the wonderful way in which he showed kindness to us.”
The free gift he gave us translates a verb which is used only here and in Luke 1.28 in the New Testament, and which means “to give generously.” Good News Translation has the free gift he gave us, since it seems more natural to speak of “a gift” as the object of the verb “to give” rather than “his grace.” Most translations, however, find nothing unnatural in this.
In order to express the concept of “generous giving” involved in the Greek verb, one can emphasize either (1) the attitude of the giver by such terms as “generous” or “free” or (2) the abundance of the gift as “so much.” Accordingly, “which he generously gave us” may be expressed as “which he gave us because of his good heart.” But if one wishes the emphasis to be upon the abundance of the gift, he may say “which he gave us so abundantly” or “… to such a great extent.”
In his dear Son: it was by means of Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son (see Mark 1.11, the heavenly voice at the baptism of Jesus), that God manifested his grace to mankind. The Greek uses the perfect passive participle of the verb “to love” (see Revised Standard Version “the Beloved”); here only is this participle used of Christ in the New Testament. The phrase “in the beloved” may be rendered as “by means of what was done by his Son whom he loves.” In some instances, means is expressed by a term or phrase which indicates the possibility of something happening or existing. Therefore, “in the beloved” may be rendered as “God’s dear Son made this possible.”
It would seem that the way in which Good News Translation has restructured the various items in verses 5-6 is fairly apparent and needs no further comment.
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1982. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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