The Greek and Hebrew that are translated as “consecration” or “consecrate” in English is translated in Poqomchi’ as “set apart” (when applying to a ritual not to a moral status). (Source: Robert Bascom)
In Newari it is translated as “make holy” (source: Newari Back Translation) and in Kwere as “put to holy work” when it refers to making someone or something suitable for priestly duties, when it refers to individual consecration outside of the priestly duty, “offer (yourselves) for my sake” is also used. (Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated with “clothes” or similar in English is translated in Enlhet as “crawling-in-stuff” (source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1971, p. 169ff. ) and in Noongar as bwoka or “Kangaroo skin” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 19:14:
Kupsabiny: “Then, Moses went down to tell the people to prepare themselves. Those people washed their clothes.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “Moses came down from the mountain and ordered the people to be ready to worship to God. Then they washed their clothes.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “Moises came-down the mountain and commanded the people to-be-cleansed. And the people washed their clothes.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Bariai: “Okay, Moses climbed down from the mountain, and then went to the people and then put God’s mark of ownership on them, and then said for them to follow behavior for showing that God’s mark of ownership is resting on them and so wash their clothes also.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
Opo: “When Moses climbed down went to people, he again said to them they must wash from evil things, they must wash clothes their. They did it.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
English: “So Moses/I went down the mountain again and told the people to purify themselves. They did what Moses/I told them to do, and they also washed their clothes.” (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 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
So Moses went down from the mountain to the people marks the third descent of Moses from the mountain. (See the comment on verses 9b-10.) Since went down suggests that the narrator is located on top of the mountain, it is better to locate the narrator at the bottom and say, as Good News Translation translates, “Moses came down the mountain….” And consecrated the people uses the same words as verse 10. And they washed their garments is also the same as in verse 10. (See the comment there.)
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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