Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 18:26:
Kupsabiny: “They were all the time counseling/guiding the people all the days and took hard cases/things to Moses and/but the simple ones they would solve those.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “From that day they served as judges for the people. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple cases they solved themselves.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “They served the people as judges at all times. They settled the simple cases, but the hard cases they brought to Moises.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Bariai: “They straightened disputes for the people all the time. And so they alone ended (lit. killed) the small disputes. But the big disputes, they let them go to Moses.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
Opo: “By day by day, be they that judge people. That which be small, they decided it amongst themselves, and that which be hard, they took it for Moses.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
English: “They were appointed permanently to make decisions about the people’s disputes. They brought the difficult cases to Moses/me, but they decided the matters that were not difficult by themselves.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
American Sign Language also uses the sign depicting the horns but also has a number of alternative signs (see here ).
In French Sign Language, a similar sign is used, but it is interpreted as “radiance” (see below) and it culminates in a sign for “10,” signifying the 10 commandments:
The horns that are visible in Michelangelo’s statue are based on a passage in the Latin Vulgate translation (and many Catholic Bible translations that were translated through the 1950ies with that version as the source text). Jerome, the translator, had worked from a Hebrew text without the niqquds, the diacritical marks that signify the vowels in Hebrew and had interpreted the term קרו (k-r-n) in Exodus 34:29 as קֶ֫רֶן — keren “horned,” rather than קָרַו — karan “radiance” (describing the radiance of Moses’ head as he descends from Mount Sinai).
In Swiss-German Sign Language (and Hungarian Sign Language) it is translated with a sign depicting holding a staff. This refers to a number of times where Moses’s staff is used in the context of miracles, including the parting of the sea (see Exodus 14:16), striking of the rock for water (see Exodus 17:5 and following), or the battle with Amalek (see Exodus 17:9 and following).
In Vietnamese (Hanoi) Sign Language it is translated with the sign that depicts the eye make up he would have worn as the adopted son of an Egyptian princess. (Source: The Vietnamese Sign Language translation team, VSLBT)
“Moses” in Vietnamese Sign Language, source: SooSL
In Korean Sign Language it is translated with the sign that depicts the arms held up by Moses to assure the Israelites victory over the Amalekites (see Exodus 17:11).
And they judged the people at all times is identical to verse 22, but here the tense of the verb must be changed. Hard cases means “the difficult cases” (Good News Translation). Hard is not the same word as “great” in verse 22, but davar is still used for cases. (See verse 16.) But any small matter they decided themselves is the same as verse 22.
Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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