Exod 20:24 – TIPs

altar

The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that is translated as “altar” in English is translated in a number of ways:

Obolo: ntook or “raised structure for keeping utensils (esp. sacrifice)” (source: Enene Enene)
Muna: medha kaefoampe’a or “offering table” (source: René van den Berg)
Luchazi: muytula or “the place where one sets the burden down”/”the place where the life is laid down” (source: E. Pearson in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 160ff. )
Tzotzil: “where they place God’s gifts” (source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation, March 1965, p. 2ff.)
Tsafiki: “table for giving to God” (source: Bruce Moore in Notes on Translation 1/1992, p. 1ff.)
Noongar: karla-kooranyi or “sacred fire” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “offering-burning table” (source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “place for sacrificing” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “burning-place” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tibetan: mchod khri (མཆོད་ཁྲི།) or “offering throne” (source: gSungrab website )
Bura-Pabir: “sacrifice mound” (source: Andy Warrren-Rothlin)
Kalanga: “fireplace of sacrifice” (source: project-specific notes in Paratext)
Cherokee: “fire nurturing place” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 26) (note that the Jewish priest is “fire feeder” in Cherokee

The Ignaciano translators decided to translate the difficult term in that language according to the focus of each New Testament passage in which the word appears (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight

Willis Ott (in Notes on Translation 88/1982, p. 18ff.) explains:

Matt. 5:23,24: “When you take your offering to God, and arriving, you remember…, do not offer your gift yet. First go to your brother…Then it is fitting to return and offer your offering to God.” (The focus is on improving relationships with people before attempting to improve a relationship with God, so the means of offering, the altar, is not focal.)
Matt. 23:18 (19,20): “You also teach erroneously: ‘If someone makes a promise, swearing by the offering-place/table, he is not guilty if he should break the promise. But if he swears by the gift that he put on the offering-place/table, he will be guilty if he breaks the promise.'”
Luke 1:11: “…to the right side of the table where they burn incense.”
Luke 11.51. “…the one they killed in front of the temple (or the temple enclosure).” (The focus is on location, with overtones on: “their crime was all the more heinous for killing him there”.)
Rom. 11:3: “Lord, they have killed all my fellow prophets that spoke for you. They do not want anyone to give offerings to you in worship.” (The focus is on the people’s rejection of religion, with God as the object of worship.)
1Cor. 9:13 (10:18): “Remember that those that attend the temple have rights to eat the foods that people bring as offerings to God. They have rights to the meat that the people offer.” (The focus is on the right of priests to the offered food.)
Heb. 7:13: “This one of whom we are talking is from another clan. No one from that clan was ever a priest.” (The focus in on the legitimacy of this priest’s vocation.)
Jas. 2:21: “Remember our ancestor Abraham, when God tested him by asking him to give him his son by death. Abraham was to the point of stabbing/killing his son, thus proving his obedience.” (The focus is on the sacrifice as a demonstration of faith/obedience.)
Rev. 6:9 (8:3,5; 9:13; 14:18; 16:7): “I saw the souls of them that…They were under the table that holds God’s fire/coals.” (This keeps the concepts of: furniture, receptacle for keeping fire, and location near God.)
Rev. 11:1: “Go to the temple, Measure the building and the inside enclosure (the outside is contrasted in v. 2). Measure the burning place for offered animals. Then count the people who are worshiping there.” (This altar is probably the brazen altar in a temple on earth, since people are worshiping there and since outside this area conquerors are allowed to subjugate for a certain time.)

burnt-offering

The Hebrew olah (עֹלָה) originally means “that which goes up (in smoke).” English Bibles often translates it as “burnt-offering” or “whole burnt-offering,” focusing on the aspect of the complete burning of the offering.

The Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate Bibles translate it as holokautōma / holocautōsis (ὁλοκαύτωμα / ὁλοκαύτωσις) and holocaustum, respectively, meaning “wholly burnt.” While a form of this term is widely used in many Romance languages (Spanish: holocaustos, French: holocaustes, Italian: olocausti, Portuguese: holocaustos) and originally also in the Catholic tradition of English Bible translations, it is largely not used in English anymore today (the preface of the revised edition of the Catholic New American Bible of 2011: “There have been changes in vocabulary; for example, the term ‘holocaust’ is now normally reserved for the sacrilegious attempt to destroy the Jewish people by the Third Reich.”)

Since translation into Georgian was traditionally done on the basis of the Greek Septuagint, a transliteration of holokautōma was used as well, which was changed to a translation with the meaning of “burnt offering” when the Old Testament was retranslated in the 1980’s on the basis of the Hebrew text.

In the Koongo (Ki-manianga) translation by the Alliance Biblique de la R.D. Congo (publ. in 2015) olah is translated as “kill and offer sacrifice” (source: Anicet Bassilua) and in Elhomwe as “fire offering.” (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

The English translation of Everett Fox uses offering-up (similarly, the German translation by Buber-Rosenzweig has Darhöhung and the French translation by Chouraqui montée).

words of (human) motion

Targumim (or: Targums) are translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. They were translated and used when Jewish congregations increasingly could not understand the biblical Hebrew anymore. Targum Onqelos (also: Onkelos) is the name of the Aramaic translation of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) probably composed in Israel/Palestine in the 1st or 2nd century CE and later edited in Babylon in the 4th or 5th century, making it reflect Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. It is the most famous Aramaic translation and was widely used throughout the Jewish communities.

In many, but not all, cases the translation of Targum Onqelos avoids anthropomorphisms (attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions) as they relate in the original Hebrew text to God.

The Hebrew of Genesis 20:3 and 31:24 as well as Numbers 22:9 that is translated in English as “God came to . . .” is translated in Targum Onqelos as “the word came from before God to ….”

Other occurrences of Hebrew terms that are translated in English as words of motion and are circumvented in Targum Onqelos include:

Exodus 19:9: “I am going to come to you” becomes “I am going to manifest myself to you”
Exodus 20:24: “I will come to you and bless you” becomes “I will send my blessings to you and I will bless you.”
Deuteronomy 33:2: “The Lord came from Sinai” becomes “The Lord manifested himself from Sinai”
Exodus 12:12 and 12:23: “pass through the land of Egypt” becomes “manifest (myself) in the land of Egypt”
Exodus 11:4: “I will go out through Egypt” becomes “I will manifest myself in the midst of Egypt”
Exodus 3:18: “has met with us” becomes “has manifested himself to us”
Numbers 23:3: “the Lord will come to meet me” becomes “the word from before the Lord shall be proclaimed before me”

(Source: Schochet 1966, p. 29ff.)

sheep

“Sheep are known throughout most of the world, even though, as in Central Africa, they are a far cry from the fleecy wool-producing animals of colder climates. Where such animals are known, even by seemingly strange names, e.g. ‘cotton deer’ (Yucateco) or ‘woolly goat’ (Inupiaq), such names should be used. In some instances, one may wish to borrow a name and use a classifier, e.g. ‘an animal called sheep.’ In still other instances translators have used ‘animal which produces wool’, for though people are not acquainted with the animals they are familiar with wool.” (Source: Bratcher / Nida)

In Dëne Súline, it is usually translated as “an evil little caribou.” To avoid the negative connotation, a loan word from the neighboring South Slavey was used. (Source: NCEM, p. 70)

Note that the often-alleged Inuktitut translation of “sheep” with “seal” is an urban myth (source Nida 1947, p. 136).

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. )

complete verse (Exodus 20:24)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 20:24:

Kupsabiny: “Use clay to make an altar and after that make for me from your sheep, goats and cows burnt offerings and those of fellowship. If/When you set aside any place for worship, I will come there and bless you.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever my name is honored, I will come there and bless you.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “‘[You (plur.)] make an altar of dirt for me and [you (plur.)] sacrifice on it your (plur.) sheep, goats, and cows/cattles as a burnt offering and offering which (is) for a good relationship. [You (plur.)] put this in the place that I choose which/(where) I will-be-worshipped, and there I will-come and bless you (plur.).” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Bariai: “‘ ‘Take earth and then make my table of offerings, and so kill (lit. strike) your (pl.) sipsips and memes and bulmakaos on it, and so they be your offering to me. Some of them you [will] put onto the fire, and so the fire will cook them so that they completely burn and be finished, and others [will] be an offering for eating in order that we (incl.) together be in agreement (lit. have a single interior). In whichever area I set for you (pl.) to lift up my name in, I will come to you and then do good to you.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
Opo: “you gather ground in one place for altar which you will give me thing there. you will burn for me animal with fire there, and you will give me gift(s) of peace your, sheep/goats and cows, there. Therefore, at many places which I will put down that they might call my name there, I will come will bless you there.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
English: “Make for me an altar from dirt. Sacrifice on it the animals that you will burn completely. Also sacrifice on it the animals that you will not burn completely, to maintain fellowship with me. Worship me in any place that I choose for you to honor/worship me; and if you do that, I will come to you and bless you.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Exod 20:24

An altar of earth means an elevated place made out of soil for offering sacrifices, and this is how it will be expressed in a number of languages; for example, “Build up an elevated place with earth.” (See the comments at 17.15 and 27.1.) You shall make for me may be understood as “to me,” or better, “for worshiping me.” You now switches back to singular. New Revised Standard Version brings out the idea that Yahweh will be satisfied with a simple altar: “You need make for me only an altar of earth.” This is suggested by the alternative mentioned in verse 25.

And sacrifice on it is literally “and you [singular] will slaughter upon it,” or “Offer on it animals which you have slaughtered.” Your burnt offerings refers to the offering of animals that were burned completely on the altar, with the exception of the hide, which went to the priest (Lev 7.8). And your peace offerings refers to the offering of animals that were not burned. The meat was divided among the priests and the worshipers. The purpose of this offering was to restore shalom or fellowship with someone else. So one may translate “and your offerings to restore fellowship with other people.” (This offering is described in Leviticus 3.) Good News Translation has “your fellowship offerings,” and New Revised Standard Version calls them “offerings of well-being.” (See the discussion of these two kinds of offerings at 29.18, 28.)

The animals used for these offerings were sheep and oxen. But the Hebrew word for sheep is a general term that included both “sheep and goats” (New International Version). Oxen means “cattle,” both male and female. (See the comment at 9.2-3.) In every place where I cause my name to be remembered is a literal translation. It means, as Good News Translation expresses it, “in every place that I set aside for you to worship me,” “Wherever I choose to be worshiped” (Contemporary English Version), or “wherever I direct you to invoke my name” (Translator’s Old Testament). Childs has “in every place where I reveal my name.” However, “worship” (Good News Translation) seems to be the most likely meaning here. I will come to you and bless you uses the singular you. Come probably means “come down.” The word for bless implies that Yahweh will give power for fertility, prosperity, and success. Bless has many meanings depending upon the context. Since here it refers to conferring prosperity upon the people, one may express it as “I will come down to you and cause you to be prosperous” or “and make you prosper.”

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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Verse: Exodus 20:24