Following are a number of back-translations of Ephesians 5:8:
Uma: “For long ago, your hearts were still dark, but now you have become bright/light because of your connection with the Lord. So, behave like people whose hearts have become bright/light.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Formerly you were as if in darkness. But now you are as if in the light because you already/now follow Isa Almasi. Therefore your conduct should match that of people in the light.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “For long time ago your way was very dark, which is to say you did not know God. But today, your ways has been shined on because you have now become subjects of the Lord, and because of this it’s necessary that your behavior be worthy of walking on the shining path.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Because previously, granted, your minds were dark, but now however, they are illuminated because of your being united-with the Lord. Follow then the behavior that is fitting for people who remain in the light” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Because then, in the past there, you were really still in the darkness because you had no knowledge/recognition of God. But now, (you are) now in the light because of your being united/tied-together with the Lord. Therefore live now a life that is fitting for the people who have now been enlightened.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “Before we walked in all that is evil. But now we walk with Christ. Let us walk in the way God wants us to walk.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
The Hebrew adonai in the Old Testament typically refers to God. The shorter adon (and in two cases in the book of Daniel the Aramaic mare [מָרֵא]) is also used to refer to God but more often for concepts like “master,” “owner,” etc. In English Bible translations all of those are translated with “Lord” if they refer to God.
In English Old Testament translations, as in Old Testament translations in many other languages, the use of Lord (or an equivalent term in other languages) is not to be confused with Lord (or the equivalent term with a different typographical display for other languages). While the former translates adonai, adon and mare, the latter is a translation for the tetragrammaton (YHWH) or the Name of God. See tetragrammaton (YHWH) and the article by Andy Warren-Rothlin in Noss / Houser, p. 618ff. for more information.
In the New Testament, the Greek term kurios has at least four different kinds of use:
referring to “God,” especially in Old Testament quotations,
meaning “master” or “owner,” especially in parables, etc.,
as a form of address (see for instance John 4:11: “Sir, you have no bucket”),
or, most often, referring to Jesus
In the first and fourth case, it is also translated as “Lord” in English.
Most languages naturally don’t have one word that covers all these meanings. According to Bratcher / Nida, “the alternatives are usually (1) a term which is an honorific title of respect for a high-ranking person and (2) a word meaning ‘boss’, ‘master’, or ‘chief.’ (…) and on the whole it has generally seemed better to employ a word of the second category, in order to emphasize the immediate personal relationship, and then by context to build into the word the prestigeful character, since its very association with Jesus Christ will tend to accomplish this purpose.”
When looking at the following list of back-translations of the terms that translators in the different languages have used for both kurios and adonai to refer to God and Jesus respectively, it might be helpful for English readers to recall the etymology of the English “Lord.” While this term might have gained an exalted meaning in the understanding of many, it actually comes from hlaford or “loaf-ward,” referring to the lord of the castle who was the keeper of the bread (source: Rosin 1956, p. 121).
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight
Following are some of the solutions that don’t rely on a different typographical display (see above):
Iyansi: Mwol. Mwol is traditionally used for the “chief of a group of communities and villages” with legal, temporal, and spiritual authority (versus the “mfum [the term used in other Bantu languages] which is used for the chief of one community of people in one village”). Mwol is also used for twins who are “treated as special children, highly honored, and taken care of like kings and queens.” (Source: Kividi Kikama in Greed / Kruger, p. 396ff.)
Binumarien: Karaambaia: “fight-leader” (Source: Oates 1995, p. 255)
Warlpiri: Warlaljamarri (owner or possessor of something — for more information tap or click here)
We have come to rely on another term which emphasizes God’s essential nature as YHWH, namely jukurrarnu (see tetragrammaton (YHWH)). This word is built on the same root jukurr– as is jukurrpa, ‘dreaming.’ Its basic meaning is ‘timelessness’ and it is used to describe physical features of the land which are viewed as always being there. Some speakers view jukurrarnu in terms of ‘history.’ In all Genesis references to YHWH we have used Kaatu Jukurrarnu. In all Mark passages where kurios refers to God and not specifically to Christ we have also used Kaatu Jukurrarnu.
New Testament references to Christ as kurios are handled differently. At one stage we experimented with the term Watirirririrri which refers to a ceremonial boss of highest rank who has the authority to instigate ceremonies. While adequately conveying the sense of Christ’s authority, there remained potential negative connotations relating to Warlpiri ceremonial life of which we might be unaware.
Here it is that the Holy Spirit led us to make a chance discovery. Transcribing the personal testimony of the local Warlpiri pastor, I noticed that he described how ‘my Warlaljamarri called and embraced me (to the faith)’. Warlaljamarri is based on the root warlalja which means variously ‘family, possessions, belongingness’. A warlaljamarri is the ‘owner’ or ‘possessor’ of something. While previously being aware of the ‘ownership’ aspect of warlaljamarri, this was the first time I had heard it applied spontaneously and naturally in a fashion which did justice to the entire concept of ‘Lordship’. Thus references to Christ as kurios are now being handled by Warlaljamarri.” (Source: Stephen Swartz, The Bible Translator 1985, p. 415ff. )
Mairasi: Onggoao Nem (“Throated One” — “Leader,” “Elder”) or Enggavot Nan (“Above-One”) (source: Enggavoter 2004)
Obolo: Okaan̄-ene (“Owner of person(s)”) (source: Enene Enene)
Lotha Naga: Opvui (“owner of house / field / cattle”) — since both “Lord” and YHWH are translated as Opvui there is an understanding that “Opvui Jesus is the same as the Opvui of the Old Testament”
Seediq: Tholang, loan word from Min Nan Chinese (the majority language in Taiwan) thâu-lâng (頭儂): “Master” (source: Covell 1998, p. 248)
Thai: phra’ phu pen cao (พระผู้เป็นเจ้า) (divine person who is lord) or ong(kh) cao nay (องค์เจ้านาย) (<divine classifier>-lord-boss) (source: Stephen Pattemore)
Arabic often uses different terms for adonai or kurios referring to God (al-rabb الرب) and kurios referring to Jesus (al-sayyid الـسـيـد). Al-rabb is also the term traditionally used in Arabic Christian-idiom translations for YHWH, and al-sayyid is an honorary term, similar to English “lord” or “sir” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin).
Tamil also uses different terms for adonai/kurios when referring to God and kurios when referring to Jesus. The former is Karttar கர்த்தர், a Sanskrit-derived term with the original meaning of “creator,” and the latter in Āṇṭavar ஆண்டவர், a Tamil term originally meaning “govern” or “reign” (source: Natarajan Subramani).
Burunge: Looimoo: “owner who owns everything” (in the Burunge Bible translation, this term is only used as a reference to Jesus and was originally used to refer to the traditional highest deity — source: Michael Endl in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 48)
Yagaria: Souve, originally “war lord” (source: Renck, p. 94)
Aguacateco: Ajcaw ske’j: “the one to whom we belong and who is above us” (source: Rita Peterson in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 49)
Konkomba: Tidindaan: “He who is the owner of the land and reigns over the people” (source: Lidorio 2007, p. 66)
Chichewa: AmbuyeAmbuye comes from the singular form Mbuye which is used to refer to: (1) someone who is a guardian or protector of someone or group of people — a grandparent who has founded a community or village; (2) someone who is a boss or master over a group of people or servants and has absolute control over them; (3) owner of something, be it a property, animals and people who are bound under his/her rule — for people this was mostly commonly used in the context of slaves and their owner. In short, Mbuye is someone who has some authorities over those who call him/her their “Mbuye.” Now, when the form Ambuye is used it will either be for honorific when used for singular or plural when referring to more than one person. When this term is used in reference to God, it is for respect to God as he is acknowledged as a guardian, protector, and ruler of everything. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation).
Hdi uses rveri (“lion”) as a title of respect and as such it regularly translates adon in the Old Testament. As an address, it’s most often with a possessive pronoun as in rvera ɗa (“my lion” = “my lord” or “sir”). So, for example, Genesis 15:2 (“O Lord God”) is Rvera ɗa Yawe (“My lion Yahweh”) or Ruth to Boaz in Ruth 2:13: “May I find your grace [lit. good-stomach] my lion.” This ties in nicely with the imagery of the Lord roaring like a lion (Hosea 11:10; Amos 3:8; Joel 3:16). Better still, this makes passages like Revelation 5:5 even richer when we read about rveri ma taba məndəra la Yuda, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”. In Revelation 19:16, Jesus is rveri ta ghəŋa rveriha “the lion above lions” (“lord of lords”). (Source: Drew Maust)
Law (2013, p. 97) writes about how the Ancient GreekSeptuagint‘s translation of the Hebrew adonai was used by the New Testament writers as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments: “Another case is the use of kurios referring to Jesus. For Yahweh (in English Bibles: ‘the Lord‘), the Septuagint uses kurios. Although the term kurios usually has to do with one’s authority over others, when the New Testament authors use this word from the Septuagint to refer to Jesus, they are making an extraordinary claim: Jesus of Nazareth is to be identified with Yahweh.”
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).
“At one time you were darkness, but now (you are) light in the Lord” is how the first part of verse 8 reads in Greek. The two metaphors darkness and light stand for spiritual and moral conditions: death versus life, lost versus saved, evil versus goodness (see 2.11, 13 for the same contrast in the past … but now). For darkness as a figure of life apart from God see 4.18; Colossians 1.13; and for the figure of light see 1.18.
In a number of languages the figurative expressions darkness and light do not readily carry the significance of the biblical contrast. But it is surprising how quickly the significance of these terms is understood and appreciated. It is for that reason that some psychologists have regarded such a contrast as being a symbolic universal. It may, however, be necessary in a context such as this to employ “the darkness of night” in contrast with “the light of day.” In this way one may avoid some misinterpretations which might arise from people thinking about the darkness of a cave or a hole, in contrast with light coming from a fire or a lamp.
Since you have become the Lord’s people translates the Greek prepositional phrase “in the Lord” (compare Translator’s New Testament “now that you belong to the Lord”). “Now that you are united to the Lord” is another way this phrase can be translated.
So you must live like people who belong to the light: the rest of verse 8 in Greek is the command “walk as children of light”; for the verb “to walk” see 2.2, 10; 4.1, 17; 5.2; and for the phrase “children of light,” meaning people who belong to the light, see the similar “children of anger” in 2.3.
It is not difficult for people to conceive of how persons may “live in the light” or “be in the light,” but it may be far more difficult to conceive of a relationship involved in “belonging to the light.” It may therefore be preferable to translate who belong to the light as “who habitually live in the light.”
Verse 9 is a parenthetical addition; the sentence that begins in verse 8 in Greek goes directly from verse 8 to verse 10: “Walk as children of the light, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.” Revised Standard Version, New International Version place verse 9 within parentheses and join verse 8 directly to verse 10. In many languages, however, it is not natural to put the parenthetical statement that is in verse 9 in the middle of a sentence that begins in verse 8 and continues at verse 10. So what Good News Translation has done may be better for such languages: for it is the light that brings a rich harvest…. Verse 9 in Greek is literally “for the fruit of light (is) in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” Light here is seen as a fertile field which produces fruit (see especially Gal 5.22 for similar figurative use of “fruit”).
As Good News Translation margin shows, there is a variant wording supported by some early Greek manuscripts, including (P46): “the fruit of the Spirit” (as in Gal 5.22) instead of “the fruit of light.” But this is clearly an inferior text.
Goodness, righteousness, and truth: the three qualities listed are all moral virtues, ethical qualities, which characterize people who “walk in the light” of God. See Barclay: “For light brings as its rich harvest everything that is good and right and true.”
There may be certain problems involved in the figurative language of verse 9, namely, it is the light that brings a rich harvest. The Greek implies that the result of the light is every kind of goodness, righteousness, and truth, something which people actually produce in their lives. It may therefore be best to translate verse 9 as “it is this light which causes people to do everything that is good and right and true,” or else “for everything that is good and right and true comes from the light.” The expression “true” must be understood in the sense of genuine and sincere, not true in the sense of being in accordance with fact.
The word translated goodness occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only in Romans 15.14; Galatians 5.22; 2 Thessalonians 1.11. Righteousness and truth both occur in 4.24.
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 .
you were once darkness, but now you are light: Paul contrasted the way they once were in the past before they were Christians, with the way they now are, now that they are Christians.
darkness…light: The words darkness and light are metaphors here. Many languages use darkness and light as metaphors. In this context, darkness refers to being disobedient and separated from the will and purposes of God. Here, light represents having true knowledge about the will and purposes of God.
Paul uses this metaphor for several verses here, and often in his writings. You should try to keep the metaphors of light and dark, if possible.
5:8a
For: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as For introduces the reason that the Ephesians should not be partners with evil people. They should not be partners because they are now in the light.
Some versions do not translate this conjunction. Translate it in a way that is natural in your language.
you were once darkness: Here are some ways to translate this clause:
You used to be like people living in the dark (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
your hearts were dark
-or-
you lived/dwelt in the dark
-or-
the darkness ⌊of disobedience and sin⌋ controlled you
5:8b
but now you are light: Here are some ways to translate this clause:
now you have light ⌊from the Lord⌋ (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
now you have ⌊entered⌋ God’s light ⌊of truth and goodness⌋
-or-
now God has made your hearts bright ⌊with purity and truth⌋
Use expressions that are natural and clear in your language.
in the Lord: The phrase in the Lord means:
since you have become the Lord’s people
-or-
in union with the Lord (Jesus)
-or-
since you have become united to the Lord
Lord: Here the word Lord refers to Jesus. When Paul used the word Lord in his letters, he almost always meant the Lord Jesus.
5:8c
Walk: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible literally translates as Walk means “behave.” See how you translated “walk/live” in 2:2a, 2:10c and 4:1b.)
as children of light: The phrase children of light here contrasts with the “sons of disobedience” in 5:6b. It refers to people who live in the light of God’s truth, that is, “people who behave as God wants.” All believers are children of light : they have turned away from their sins (darkness) and have come to Christ (light). For example:
people who belong to the light (Good News Translation)
Here are some other ways to translate “Walk as children of light”:
So act like people of the light (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
So you must live like people who belong to the light (Good News Translation)
-or-
Live as children who have light. (God’s Word)
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.