39And in the vestibule of the gate were two tables on either side on which the burnt offering and the purification offering and the guilt offering were to be slaughtered.
The Hebrew olah (עֹלָה) originally means “that which goes up (in smoke).” English Bibles often translates it as “burnt-offering” or “whole burnt-offering,” focusing on the aspect of the complete burning of the offering.
The GreekSeptuagint and the LatinVulgate Bibles translate it as holokautōma / holocautōsis (ὁλοκαύτωμα / ὁλοκαύτωσις) and holocaustum, respectively, meaning “wholly burnt.” While a form of this term is widely used in many Romance languages (Spanish: holocaustos, French: holocaustes, Italian: olocausti, Portuguese: holocaustos) and originally also in the Catholic tradition of English Bible translations, it is largely not used in English anymore today (the preface of the revised edition of the Catholic New American Bible of 2011: “There have been changes in vocabulary; for example, the term ‘holocaust’ is now normally reserved for the sacrilegious attempt to destroy the Jewish people by the Third Reich.”)
Since translation into Georgian was traditionally done on the basis of the Greek Septuagint, a transliteration of holokautōma was used as well, which was changed to a translation with the meaning of “burnt offering” when the Old Testament was retranslated in the 1980’s on the basis of the Hebrew text.
In the Koongo (Ki-manianga) translation by the Alliance Biblique de la R.D. Congo (publ. in 2015) olah is translated as “kill and offer sacrifice” (source: Anicet Bassilua) and in Elhomwe as “fire offering.” (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The English translation of Everett Fox uses offering-up (similarly, the German translation by Buber-Rosenzweig has Darhöhung and the French translation by Chouraqui montée).
The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is typically translated as “sin” in English has a wide variety of translations.
The Greek ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō) carries the original verbatim meaning of “miss the mark” and likewise, many translations contain the “connotation of moral responsibility.”
Loma: “leaving the road” (which “implies a definite standard, the transgression of which is sin”)
Navajo (Dinė): “that which is off to the side” (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida)
Toraja-Sa’dan: kasalan, originally meaning “transgression of a religious or moral rule” and in the context of the Bible “transgression of God’s commandments” (source: H. van der Veen in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 21ff. )
Bariai: “bad behavior” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
Sandawe: “miss the mark” (like the original meaning of the Greek term) (source for this and above: Ursula Wiesemann in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 36ff., 43)
Nias: horö, originally a term primarily used for sexual sin. (Source: Hummel / Telaumbanua 2007, p. 256)
In Shipibo-Conibo the term is hocha. Nida (1952, p. 149) tells the story of its choosing: “In some instances a native expression for sin includes many connotations, and its full meaning must be completely understood before one ever attempts to use it. This was true, for example, of the term hocha first proposed by Shipibo-Conibo natives as an equivalent for ‘sin.’ The term seemed quite all right until one day the translator heard a girl say after having broken a little pottery jar that she was guilty of ‘hocha.’ Breaking such a little jar scarcely seemed to be sin. However, the Shipibos insisted that hocha was really sin, and they explained more fully the meaning of the word. It could be used of breaking a jar, but only if the jar belonged to someone else. Hocha was nothing more nor less than destroying the possessions of another, but the meaning did not stop with purely material possessions. In their belief God owns the world and all that is in it. Anyone who destroys the work and plan of God is guilty of hocha. Hence the murderer is of all men most guilty of hocha, for he has destroyed God’s most important possession in the world, namely, man. Any destructive and malevolent spirit is hocha, for it is antagonistic and harmful to God’s creation. Rather than being a feeble word for some accidental event, this word for sin turned out to be exceedingly rich in meaning and laid a foundation for the full presentation of the redemptive act of God.”
Martin Ehrensvärd, one of the translators for the DanishBibelen 2020, comments on the translation of this term: “We would explain terms, such that e.g. sin often became ‘doing what God does not want’ or ‘breaking God’s law’, ‘letting God down’, ‘disrespecting God’, ‘doing evil’, ‘acting stupidly’, ‘becoming guilty’. Now why couldn’t we just use the word sin? Well, sin in contemporary Danish, outside of the church, is mostly used about things such as delicious but unhealthy foods. Exquisite cakes and chocolates are what a sin is today.” (Source: Ehrensvärd in HIPHIL Novum 8/2023, p. 81ff. )
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 40:39:
Kupsabiny: “There were four tables there by/in the veranda of the gate, two on this side and two on that side. The animals of sacrifices were skinned there like those that were burned whole, those for sweeping away sin and for appeasing of sin.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “On each side of that balcony there were two tables where the animals were-being-slaughtered as burnt offering, offering of cleansing, and offering as payment for sin.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “In the entry room, there were two tables on each side of the room. On those tables would be slaughtered the animals that would be completely burned, and the animals for offerings for sins that people had committed, and offerings to cause people to longer be guilty for having sinned.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
And in the vestibule of the gate were two tables on either side … And on the outside of the vestibule at the entrance of the north gate were two tables; and on the other side of the vestibule of the gate were two tables: Here Ezekiel refers to eight tables. There were four tables in the vestibule of the gate, that is, in the porch of the north gatehouse. Two tables on either side means there were two tables on the left and two tables on the right as Ezekiel entered the porch through the doorway from the outer courtyard. On the outside of the vestibule at the entrance … were two tables; and on the other side of the vestibule … were two tables means that outside the porch in the outer courtyard, there were two tables on either side of the doorway. Ezekiel does not say what these tables were made of. It is most likely that they were made of wood.
In verse 40 the first occurrence of the word vestibule is not in the Hebrew text (see Revised Standard Version footnote). Those translations that read vestibule or “porch” (New Century Version) have changed the Hebrew slightly to get that meaning. The Hebrew actually reads “to the one going up” or “as one goes up,” which reflects the way Ezekiel approached the gateway. The vestibule at the entrance of the north gate may be rendered “as one goes up to the entrance of the north gate” or “as I went up to the entrance of the north gate.” Some translations understand the Hebrew here to refer to the “steps” (Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New International Reader’s Version) or “stairs” (New Living Translation, Moffatt) that were mentioned in verse 37 and led from the outer courtyard up to the north gatehouse; for example, New International Version says “near the steps at the entrance to the north gateway.” This is an acceptable model.
In these verses Ezekiel focuses again on the north gate, even though, as we have suggested, all the inner gates were the same. Unless it is awkward in their language to do so, translators will probably find it easier to do the same. It may be necessary in some languages to include a phrase to make this clear, for example, “as I was looking at the north gateway.”
On which the burnt offering and the sin offering and the guilt offering were to be slaughtered is the purpose of the eight tables. They were the places where the priests prepared the animals that they were about to sacrifice to God on the altar. In verses 42-43 Ezekiel describes four stone tables, which were probably the tables on which the animals were actually killed (see the comments on those verses). What happened on the eight tables in verses 40-41 was still part of the slaughtering process, but since the actual killing of the animals took place on the stone tables, it is better to refer to what the priests did on these tables as “preparing” the sacrifices. Were to be slaughtered is a passive verb that in some languages will need to be active with an agent, as in “the tables where they [or, the priests] prepared the animals that they were sacrificing to God.”
Ezekiel mentions three types of sacrifice: burnt offering, sin offering, and guilt offering. For burnt offering, see verse 38. A sin offering was a sacrifice to cleanse people from unintentional sins, so that God would forgive them (see Lev 4.1–5.13). Translators may say “offering people made to God so he would forgive them for their sins.” A guilt offering was similar to a sin offering, but it involved an element of restitution, or repaying the debt a person had incurred (see Lev 5.14–6.7; 7.1-10). Guilt refers to a feeling or sense of responsibility or regret for having done something wrong. There are cultures where it is not known or where the concept of shame is more common. In these cultures translators may render guilt offering as “offering to show that people were sorry for what they had done.” Other possible renderings are “offering for the repayment of sins” and “offering to pay a penalty for sins.”
A model for the last half of verse 39 is:
• On these [tables] the priests prepared the animals that the people gave to God to be completely burnt on the altar, and those that they gave so that God would forgive their sins and take away their guilt [or, shame].
In those cultures where sacrifices are unknown, it may not be necessary to distinguish between these different types of offering. If so, translators may say simply “On these tables the priests prepared animal meat that the people were giving to God to honor him” or “On these tables the animals that were about to be sacrificed to God were made ready for the sacrifice.”
Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.