bronze

The Hebrew, Latin, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated as “bronze” in English is translated in Newari as “bell-metal,” since bells are made of bronze in Nepal (source: Newari Back Translation).

See also bronze vessel.

complete verse (Exodus 26:11)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 26:11:

  • Kupsabiny: “After that, someone prepare fifty clips/hooks of bronze and enter them into the rings in those two cloths to join together and become one.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Then having made fifty hooks from the bronze join the two (large) pieces of cloth making one.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “and fasten this with 50 bronze clasps/hooks.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “And also, you (pl.) must make fifty bras hooks and then attach them to the ring-handles to be for the joining together of these two big cloths. [When] it’s like that then it becomes like one huge cloth.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “you pound metal red for loops which be 50, tie it inside of loops, in order that ceiling of tent it be one.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “Tell them to make fifty bronze clasps/fasteners and put them in the cloth loops to join the two sets together. As a result, the cover for the Sacred Tent will be as though it was one piece.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 26:11

And you shall make fifty clasps of bronze is almost identical with verse 6, but here the clasps are to be made of bronze, not gold. Some translations use “copper” instead of bronze (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Durham), but see the discussion at 25.3.

And put the clasps into the loops means that one clasp is to be used to join a loop on one set with its corresponding loop on the other set. And couple the tent together that it may be one whole is literally “and you [singular] shall join the ʾohel and it will be one.” The size of the one piece formed with these “two sets” (Good News Translation) was then thirty by forty-four cubits, or fifteen by twenty-two yards. Here, as in verse 7, this layer made of goats’ hair is identified as the tent (ʾohel), in contrast with the linen layer, which in verse 6 is identified as the “tabernacle” (mishkan). Good News Translation‘s use of “cover” for ʾohel is helpful: “to join the two sets so as to form one cover.”

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 .