complete verse (Exodus 34:21)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 34:21:

  • Kupsabiny: “Be working for six days and/but on the seventh day, you (plur.) rest. Even if its the season for digging/ploughing, planting or harvesting, you must rest.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Work up to sixth day but take rest on the seventh day. Take rest also during digging fields and harvest.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘You (plur.) should-work within six days, but on the seventh day you (plur.) should-rest, even during the plowing-season and harvest-season.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “‘For a duration of six days, you (pl.) will do your work. But on the seventh day, you must rest yourselves. It doesn’t matter, [if] the seventh day is coming about in your month for planting food and coming about in your month for taking ripe food, you can’t/mustn’t do work on that day. You must rest yourselves.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “you shall do thing with days six, you shall rest on seventh. Even if it be day of cutting, or day of harvest, you must rest on day seventh.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “Each week you may work for six days, but on the seventh day you must rest. Even during the times when you plow the ground and harvest your crops, you must rest on the seventh day.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 34:21

This verse is an abbreviated statement of the commandment in 20.8-11. Six days you shall work is identical with 20.9. But on the seventh day you shall rest uses the verb shavath, which means to cease or stop working. It does not have the basic meaning of resting from being tired. Good News Translation is quite correct: “but do not work on the seventh day”; Contemporary English Version states it positively: “rest on the seventh day.” The same word is used for “rest” in Gen 2.3, but a different word is used in 20.11. (See the comment there and at 16.30.)

In plowing time is one word derived from the verb “to plow.” In harvest is derived from the verb “to harvest.” Together they mean “during the seasons of plowing and harvesting” (New American Bible). You shall rest uses the word shavath again, meaning “you must cease work” (Revised English Bible). An alternative model is “not even during the times when you plow the fields or harvest the crops.”

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 .