The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated as “tabernacle” in English is translated in San Blas Kuna as “house of prayer that can be carried.” (Source: Ronald Ross)
In Bandi it is translated as “holy sitting place.” The “sitting place for the Bandi is where you live.” Therefore the tabernacle is the place where God lived. (Source: Becky Grossmann in this newsletter )
In Vidunda it is translated as “God’s tent” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext) and in Tibetan as gur mchog (གུར་མཆོག) or “perfect tent” (source: gSungrab website )
In American Sign Language it is translated with with a sign for “tent” combined with a sign referring to the outer court surrounding the tent (see Exodus 27:9 and following). (Source: Ruth Anna Spooner, Ron Lawer)
“Tabernacle” in American Sign Language, source: Deaf Harbor
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 39:33:
Kupsabiny: “After that, people brought everything to Moses which was for the Tent such as: the curtains for the Tent, the clips/hooks, frames, runners, pillars/posts and the things the pillars/posts stood on.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “They brought all the materials of the Tent of Meeting to Moses- tent and all its materials, its hooks, planks, crossbars, pillars, bases,” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “They showed to Moises the Tent Meeting-Place and all its things-for-use: the hooks, frames, crossbars, posts, bases,” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Bariai: “And when it was done, then they brought all the things to Moses. They brought God’s shelter together with its cloth and its things as follows: its hooks, and its walls’ bones, and the shelter’s fastening-band, and the posts together with their post-bases,” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
Opo: “And they bring [many times] many things to Moses: tent, with its things, and its metal, and its building-wood, and it crossbeams, and its hanging wood, and its planting-hole,” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
English: “They brought to him/me the Sacred Tent and all the things that were used with it: the hooks, the frames, the crossbars, the posts and their bases,” (Source: Translation for Translators)
The name that is transliterated as “Moses” in English means “taken out of the water,” “saved out of the water,” “a son.” (Source: Cornwall / Smith 1997 )
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 (and Hungarian 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
And they brought the tabernacle to Moses, literally “And they caused the mishkan to enter unto Moses,” is the introductory statement to the list of items that follows. The tabernacle, as it is used here, refers to the sum total of all the parts that are listed, and it is not yet put together. The assembling of all these parts is reserved for chapter 40.
The tent is the ʾohel, referring to all the curtains for the tent shrine in 26.1-5. All its utensils means “all its parts” (Durham) that will still have to be put together. The list is the same as in 35.11. (See the comment at 35.10-11.) The word for utensils is the same general term that may mean “equipment” (Good News Translation), “furnishings” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), “appurtenances” (New American Bible), or “accessories” (New Jerusalem Bible).
The covering of tanned rams’ skins and goatskins is another mistranslation in Revised Standard Version, for two separate coverings are mentioned. Literally the Hebrew says “the covering of the skins of rams, the ones dyed red, and the covering of the skins of the techashim.” New Revised Standard Version has corrected this, “the covering of tanned rams’ skins and the covering of fine leather.” These are not included in the list of 35.11-19 but are mentioned in 36.19. (See the comments at 25.5 and 26.14.)
The veil of the screen is mentioned in 35.12. (See the comment there.) It refers to the “curtain” (Good News Translation) that was to separate the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. (See 26.31.)
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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