The Greek and Hebrew hat is translated as “purple” in English is translated as “blue-red” in Ojitlán Chinantec (source: M. Larson in Notes on Translation 1970, p. 1ff.) and in Elhomwe (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext). In Silimo it is translated with a local reference: “the colour of the wipegen berry” (source: Buzz and Myrna Maxey ).
“The Kasua people of Western Province have no word for the color purple. They have words for many other colors: black, red, white, yellow, green, and blue, but not for the color of royalty.
“About nine New Testament passages mention people placing a purple robe on Jesus. The Kasua translation team always wanted to use the word ‘red,’ or keyalo, to describe the robe. Tommy, one of the translation team helpers, disagreed because this is not historically accurate or signifies the royalty of Jesus.
“One of the main rules of translation is that the team must stick to the historical facts when they translate a passage. If they don’t, then how can the readers trust what they’re reading is true? Other questions about truth could bubble in the reader’s minds about the Scriptures. For this reason, Tommy was not willing to change the word purple. So the team hung up the problem, hoping to revisit it later with more inspiration.
“God did not disappoint.
“Years later, Tommy hiked with some of the men near their village. They saw a tree that possessed bulbous growths growing on the side of it like fruit. These growths were ‘the most beautiful color of purple I’d ever seen,’ explained Tommy.
“’What is the name of this tree?’ Tommy asked the men.
“’This is an Okani tree,’ they replied.
“Tommy suggested, ‘Why don’t you, in those passages where we’ve been struggling to translate the color purple, use ‘they put a robe on Jesus the color of the fruit of the Okani tree’?
“’Yeah. We know exactly what color that is,’ the men said enthusiastically.
“Everyone in their village would also visualize this phrase accurately, as the Okani tree is the only tree in that area that produces this kind of purple growth. So now, among the Kasua people, in his royal purple robe, Jesus is shown to be the king that he is.”
In Numbers 4:13, Gbaya uses the ideophone soi-soi to emphasize the purple color. Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation and soi-soi designates something that has a red or purple color, or a thing with a clear or clean appearance. (Source: Philip Noss)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 28:8:
Kupsabiny: “(The) rope/band for the waist should be woven wisely using those things and be sewn into that (aforementioned) cloth.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “The sash of fine linen must be on top of ephod woven with blue, purple and red thread and gold thread skillfully.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “The cloth-belt (is to be) linen embroidered with gold thread and blue, purple, and red wool.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Bariai: “And also, they must take needle thread which is red and somewhat red and blue and then make the belt of his middle. And they must weave small gol cords onto them also. And when it’s done, then they [must] sew this belt onto the edge of that cloth for his trunk, and so it goes and becomes like one cloth.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
Opo: “They must sew its belt thus, with gold, with thread good which be purple, and that which be red, and that which be green/blue, as wise people do it.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
English: “A carefully-woven sash, which must be made from the same materials as the sacred apron, must be sewn onto the sacred apron.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Flax Linum usitatissimum, from which linen cloth is made, was cultivated in the Middle East, including Canaan, at least as early as 5000 B.C. A document from Gezer (in Israel) from around King Saul’s time (1000 B.C.) refers to the cultivation of flax and states that flax and wool were the main materials for making cloth. According to Joshua 2:6, the Israelite spies were hidden under flax stalks by Rahab. Flax was grown extensively in Egypt and made into cloth and mats.
Pesheth and pishtah are probably the original Hebrew words for flax, if indeed the plant was domesticated in the Holy Land, as Zohary (Plants of the Bible. Cambridge University Press, 1982) proposes. They may be related to the word pashat, meaning “to strip off” or “to flay,” or to the word pasas, meaning “to disintegrate.” Pesheth and pishtah are used twenty times in the Old Testament, twice referring clearly to the plant itself (Exodus 9:31; Joshua 2:6). Other references are to the processed flax (Judges 15:14 et al.). A few cases refer to finished products, namely wicks (Isaiah 42:3 et al.), cords (Ezekiel 40:3), and items of clothing (Jeremiah 13:1 et al.).
It is likely that the Hebrews acquired the word shesh from the Egyptians during their sojourn in Egypt, since flax was cultivated there also. The Egyptian word for flax was shent (via shen-suten). Shesh is used thirty-eight times in the Old Testament: for the material that Pharaoh put on Joseph, for the Tabernacle curtains and hangings in Exodus, for the ephod, and for the priests’ tunics. The wise woman of Proverbs 31:22 wears it. In Ezekiel 16:10 et al. it is paired with silk, and in Ezekiel 27:7 “shesh from Egypt” is spoken of as material for the sails of ships.
Several references to linen use the Hebrew word bad. In Exodus 28:42 the priests’ underwear are made from bad, and it is used thereafter in Leviticus to describe various items of clothing—coat, breeches, girdle, and turban. It turns up again in Samuel’s and King David’s “ephods” and then again in Ezekiel and Daniel, where we see visions of “a man clothed in bad.”
Linen is referred by the Hebrew word buts in 1‑2 Chronicles, Esther, and Ezekiel, where the robes of the Temple choir, kings, and rich men are described.
The Old Testament has some references to the Hebrew word sadin (“linen garment”): Judges 14:12 (Samson promises them to his opponents), Proverbs 31:24 (the wise woman makes them), and Isaiah 3:23 (the rich women of Jerusalem wear them). The Septuagint uses the Greek word bussos or sindōn in these passages.
The Hebrew word ’etun occurs only in Proverbs 7:16, where it refers to a linen bedspread from Egypt.
In the New Testament there are three primary Greek words for linen: linon/linous, sindōn, and othonē/othonion. Linon is used to refer to garments of the angels in Revelation 15:6 as well as to the “smoldering wick” in Matthew 12:20. The synoptic Gospel writers refer to the linen cloth that Joseph and Nicodemus used to wrap Jesus’ body as a sindōn. Mark uses the same word to refer to the cloth that was worn by the unidentified young man at the time of Jesus’ arrest (Mark 14:51f.). John uses a different Greek word for Jesus’ burial cloths: othonion.
The rich man referred to in the Lazarus story (Luke 16:19) is clothed in “fine linen” (bussos). The Greek word bussos is the root word for bussinos, which refers to tunics, robes and turbans made from linen fabric (Revelation 18:12 et al.).
Flax is a little taller than a sesame plant, about a meter (3 feet) tall. Its leaves are narrow and the flowers are bright blue with five petals. The seed capsule contains oil that is used for cooking and also for thinning paint. After flax ripens, the plants are uprooted and the stalks are left to dry for a while. The stalks are then soaked, dried, and beaten to separate the fibers, which are then combed and woven into cloth.
Linen cloth was relatively costly in Israel, and being light and easy to dye it was highly valued. Their priests wore linen garments to combat sweating (see Ezekiel 44:18). They had to remove these holy garments when they left the Temple, “lest they communicate holiness to the people” (Ezekiel 44:19). The high esteem given to linen by the Jews is shown also by the fact that they used it for burying the dead, and we are told that the Dead Sea Scrolls were wrapped in linen cloths. However, the flax plant was special in other ways. The crushed stalks of flax plants were also used for making rope and lamp wicks. The seed was used for oil.
Today flax is raised more for the oil that comes from the seeds (called linseed oil) than for the fibers, although flax stalks are also made into special kinds of paper.
Metaphorical uses of flax are relatively few in the Bible, and all suggest the weakness of the material. In Judges 15:14 flax fiber is used as a simile for Samson’s fetters (they snapped like linen thread). Isaiah 42:3 says the Messiah will be gentle with weak people (“a dimly burning wick [pishtah] he will not quench”), in contrast to the typical iron-fisted tyrants of the day. Isaiah 43:17 describes the fate of the Babylonian enemies: they will be snuffed out “like a wick [pishtah].”
Linen cloth (or other cloth with a similar name) is surprisingly widespread. Cloth merchants in the translators’ area may know it under a trade language name, and if so, that can be used.In some places it is used only for burying people. In that case, if it is used in translation at all, the difference in culture should be explained in a footnote. Since linen is bleached white, a generic phrase such as “beautiful white cloth” can be considered in many places. In the three metaphorical passages mentioned above, an appropriate cultural image may be substituted, or an adverb expressing weakness or fragility.
And the skilfully woven band upon it is literally “and a waistband which [is] upon it.” The word for “waistband” is related to the word translated as skilfully in describing the embroidered cherubim woven into the tabernacle fabric. (See the comment at 26.1.) So it was not to be just an ordinary band, but a “decorated band” (New Revised Standard Version), an “embroidered belt” (New American Bible), or “a finely woven belt” (Good News Translation). To gird it on is the verb form of the word for ephod, which means “to put on tightly.” (See the comment at verse 6.)
Shall be of the same workmanship and materials is literally “it shall be like its work from it.” This means that the “belt” is to be “made in the same way” as the ephod, and it may also mean that it is to be, as Good News Translation expresses it, “made of the same materials.” One may make this more explicit by saying “made of the same materials as the ephod.” Revised Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version choose both meanings, but others take the words “from it” to mean “so as to form one piece with it” (Good News Translation). (Similar are New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, New Jerusalem Bible, and New International Version.) This means that the “belt” was to be permanently “attached to the ephod” (Good News Translation), possibly like the waistband of an apron that is tied around the waist.
Of gold, blue and purple and scarlet stuff is identical with the same phrase in verse 6. (But see the comment at 25.4 for the colors, and at 26.1 for the materials.) And fine twined linen is literally “and fine linen twisted,” as in verse 6. Since this repeats what is already said of the material for the ephod, Good News Translation simply omits it.
An alternative translation model for verses 6-8 is:
• You must have them make the ephod out of fine linen that they have skillfully woven with blue, purple, and red thread, and decorated with gold. Have them make two shoulder straps to hold the ephod up. They shall attach these to the sides [or, at the front and back] of the ephod. They must skillfully weave a belt [or, sash] out of the same materials and attach it to the front of the ephod so as to form one piece with it.
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 .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.