Hail

The Hebrew and Ge’ez that is translated as “hail” in English is translated in Tagakaulo as batu na ayis or “rocks of ice.” (Source: Scott and Becky Burton in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 73)

gentiles / nations

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The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).

Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).

In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

See also nations.

complete verse (Exodus 9:24)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 9:24:

  • Kupsabiny: “When hailstones fell like that, lightning flashed. This hailstorm was a very bad one that it had not beaten ever before like that in the land of Egypt.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “With the hail lighting flashed. Never before in the history of Egypt had there ever been such a hailstorm.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “were the worst since Egipto became a nation. While (it) was-raining ice, the lightning kept-on/continued.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “Those hard raindrops were falling very greatly, and lightning flashed here and there in every area. Previously, [when] the area of Isip newly came up and until that day, the Isip people never saw any great rain like that.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “When hail was falling down, it was hitting very. And big stones of hail, there was no one who before had seen it in Egypt.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “While very heavy hail was falling, there was thunder, and lightning struck the ground. There had never been a hailstorm like that since Egypt first became a country.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 9:24

There was hail again repeats what is said in verse 23. The word for fire is the same as verse 23, but here it is described as flashing continually. This is a participle meaning literally “seizing itself.” So various translations have “lightning flashing back and forth,” “fiery flashes” (New English Bible), “flashes of forked lightning” (Translator’s Old Testament), and “lightning cracking back and forth” (Durham). In the midst of the hail may be understood as “through the hail” (New English Bible, New American Bible), or even “as the hail was falling.”

Very heavy hail is simply “very heavy” in the Hebrew, with hail now understood. Such as had never been (literally “which was not like it”) introduces an English pluperfect because of the word since (literally “from then”). Since it became a nation refers back to when Egypt “first became a nation” (Jerusalem Bible, New Jerusalem Bible), so “It was the worst storm that Egypt had ever known in all its history” (Good News Translation). In all the land of Egypt may be understood as “anywhere in Egypt” (New Jerusalem Bible). It will be possible, in languages that do not favor so much repetition as in the Hebrew, to combine verses 23 and 24 as follows:

• So Moses pointed his walking stick toward the sky, and the LORD caused the sky to roar and hailstones to fall everywhere. Lightning flashed back and forth, striking the ground. This was the worst storm of its kind in the history of Egypt.

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 .