1Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there water was flowing from below the entryway of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east), and the water was flowing down from below the south side of the temple, south of the altar.
Bura-Pabir: “sacrifice mound” (source: Andy Warrren-Rothlin)
Kalanga: “fireplace of sacrifice” (source: project-specific notes in Paratext)
Cherokee: “fire nurturing place” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 26) (note that the Jewish priest is “fire feeder” in Cherokee)
The Ignaciano translators decided to translate the difficult term in that language according to the focus of each New Testament passage in which the word appears (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight
Willis Ott (in Notes on Translation 88/1982, p. 18ff.) explains:
Matt. 5:23,24: “When you take your offering to God, and arriving, you remember…, do not offer your gift yet. First go to your brother…Then it is fitting to return and offer your offering to God.” (The focus is on improving relationships with people before attempting to improve a relationship with God, so the means of offering, the altar, is not focal.)
Matt. 23:18 (19,20): “You also teach erroneously: ‘If someone makes a promise, swearing by the offering-place/table, he is not guilty if he should break the promise. But if he swears by the gift that he put on the offering-place/table, he will be guilty if he breaks the promise.'”
Luke 1:11: “…to the right side of the table where they burn incense.”
Luke 11.51. “…the one they killed in front of the temple (or the temple enclosure).” (The focus is on location, with overtones on: “their crime was all the more heinous for killing him there”.)
Rom. 11:3: “Lord, they have killed all my fellow prophets that spoke for you. They do not want anyone to give offerings to you in worship.” (The focus is on the people’s rejection of religion, with God as the object of worship.)
1Cor. 9:13 (10:18): “Remember that those that attend the temple have rights to eat the foods that people bring as offerings to God. They have rights to the meat that the people offer.” (The focus is on the right of priests to the offered food.)
Heb. 7:13: “This one of whom we are talking is from another clan. No one from that clan was ever a priest.” (The focus in on the legitimacy of this priest’s vocation.)
Jas. 2:21: “Remember our ancestor Abraham, when God tested him by asking him to give him his son by death. Abraham was to the point of stabbing/killing his son, thus proving his obedience.” (The focus is on the sacrifice as a demonstration of faith/obedience.)
Rev. 6:9 (8:3,5; 9:13; 14:18; 16:7): “I saw the souls of them that…They were under the table that holds God’s fire/coals.” (This keeps the concepts of: furniture, receptacle for keeping fire, and location near God.)
Rev. 11:1: “Go to the temple, Measure the building and the inside enclosure (the outside is contrasted in v. 2). Measure the burning place for offered animals. Then count the people who are worshiping there.” (This altar is probably the brazen altar in a temple on earth, since people are worshiping there and since outside this area conquerors are allowed to subjugate for a certain time.)
In the Hebraic English translation of Everett Fox it is translated as slaughter-site and likewise in the German translation by Buber / Rosenzweig as Schlachtstatt.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 47:1:
Kupsabiny: “Then the man took me to where one enters the House of God. I saw a stream that flowed from under the gate of that House the one looking to the East. It flowed from the South side towards the East and passed by the altar on the South side.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “Then I was brought by the man to the gate of the temple, and there I saw a water flowing towards-east from the place-of-arrival of the gate of the temple. (The temple was-facing the east.) Then water flowed to the right, to the south side of the altar.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “Then, in the vision, the man brought me back to the entrance of the temple. There I saw water flowing out from under the entrance, flowing toward the east. The water was flowing from under the south side of the entrance, south of the altar.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
According to Anne Garber Kompaoré (in Le Sycomore 3/2009, p. 34ff. ), there are 4 ways to identify cardinal directions:
1. celestial bodies, especially the sun and certain stars
2. geographical landmarks, for example a mountain, sea, or river (depending on its position or the direction in which the water flows) etc.
3. climatic phenomena, such as the wind and the direction from which rain comes
4. bodily reference points, especially front, back, left, and right, in relation to celestial bodies or geographical landmarks
Following are examples of how these are practically implemented by various languages: (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight)
Celestial Bodies
East and west are often translated by the rising and the setting of the sun (note that the origin of English and other Indo-European languages is “dawn” for “east” and “evening” [i.e. sun-down] for “west”):
Maan: “where the sun comes up” and “where the sun goes down” (source: Don Slager)
Kankanaey: “from the coming-out of the sun “and “going-away of the sun” (source: Kankanaey back-translation)
Northern Emberá: “from where the sun comes up” and “from where the sun falls” (source: Charles Mortensen)
Ejamat “the side where the sun comes from” and “the side where it sets” (source: David Frank in this blog post )
Tzeltal: “where the sun pours-out” (west) (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
Northern Ngbandi: “the sun behind the chief’s house” (east — the chief lives traditionally at the eastern side of the village, therefore he does not get the sunlight into his eyes) and “under the sun” (west)
Northwestern Dinka: “earth behind” (east — the place behind the earth, i.e. the area where the sun rises)
Jula: “salt village” (north — because salt comes from the north, from the Sahara Desert) and “kola village” (south — since kola comes from the coastal region to the south) (source: Garber Kompaoré)
Matumbi: “toward the beach” (East) (the coast is in the eastern direction in Matumbi-speaking areas), “north” and “south” can be defined as above or below another place (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Acoli: “right” (of the local White Nile) (north) and “left” (of the White Nile) (south)
Zande: “interior (dry) land” (east); “place-inside-country” (north / south) — Zande, like a number of other languages, including Matengo and Hehe, traditionally only has three cardinal directions.
Belanda Bor: “lower place” (north) and “higher place” (south)
Turkana: “(up)stream” (north) and (down)stream (south)
Mono (DRC): “water place” (south) (source for this and five above: Mietzner / Pasch)
Climatic Phenomena
Shilluk: “opening westwind” (north) and “opening eastwind” (south)
Swahili used to have six directions. In reducing them to four, kusini and kaskazini which used to refer to south-west and north east respectively (the directions from where the two monsoons blow) have become the terms for “south” and north.” (source for this and one above: Mietzner / Pasch)
Bodily Reference Points
Nuer / Burun: “face” and “sun face” respectively (both: east)
Kalenjin: “eye sun” (east) (this and the one above indicate that the sun is “facing” the spectator from its position in the east:
Shilluk: doesn’t use a fixed position of the speaker, instead it has “eye sun morning” for east and “eye sun evening” for west
Mono (DRC): “foot-sun” (east — the start of the sun’s journey)
Burun: “sun leg” (west — the end of the sun’s journey)
Bari: “back” (north — when people are facing south, north is at their back) (source for this and above: Mietzner / Pasch)
Northern Emberá “the looking [left] hand” (north) and “the real [right] hand” (south) (source: Charles Mortensen)
Morelos Nahuatl: “from above” (north) and “from below” (south) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
When all four directions are mentioned, translators tend to avoid listing the four, sometimes verbose terms, and chose solutions like “all directions” (such as in Maan or Manya (source: Don Slager). Yakan has “from the four corners of the earth” (source: Yakan back-translation) and Western Bukidnon Manobo “from the four directions here on the earth” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo back-translation).
The Hebrew text that gives instructions where to place items in the tabernacle with the help of cardinal directions (north and south) had to be approached in the Bambam translation specific to spacial concepts of that culture. Phil Campbell explains: “There are no words in Bambam for north and south. In Exodus 26:35, God instructs that the table is to be placed on the north side and the lamp on the south side inside the tabernacle. The team wants to use right and left to tell where the lamp and table are located. In many languages we would say that the table is on the right and the lampstand is on the left based on the view of someone entering the tabernacle. However, that is not how Bambam people view it. They view the placement of things and rooms in a building according to the orientation of someone standing inside the building facing the front of the building. So that means the table is on the left side and the lampstand is on the right side.”
Then he brought me back to the door of the temple: The connector Then (literally “And”) introduces the next thing that happened. If appropriate, translators may omit this connector (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New International Version, Revised English Bible). The pronoun he refers to Ezekiel’s angelic guide (see 40.3). Brought me back is literally “caused me to return” (see 44.1). The door of the temple refers to the main entrance of the Temple. At the end of chapter 46 Ezekiel and the angelic guide were in the outer courtyard, looking at the kitchens in the corners of the courtyard. Now the guide led Ezekiel from the outer courtyard back into the inner courtyard to the entrance of the Temple. The text does not say which gateway they went through to get there.
And behold: The Hebrew word hinneh rendered behold registers surprise and adds to the vividness of the story. It may be rendered “I suddenly saw,” “I was surprised to see,” or if the language allows, “Hey, look!”
Ezekiel saw that water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple, which means water was coming out from under the entrance of the Temple. There was only a small amount of water at this point, just a trickle like that which bubbles up from a small spring. The Hebrew word for threshold is the same one used in 46.2 to refer to the entrance, or doorstep, of a building. Again, its precise meaning is unclear. Here it may be appropriate to specify that the water was coming out from under the Temple’s “doorstep,” but the more general term “entrance” (Good News Translation) is also acceptable.
It is not absolutely clear where the water was flowing. First, Ezekiel says it was flowing toward the east, that is, directly away from the front of the Temple. The words in parentheses (for the temple faced east) simply remind the reader that the front of the Temple faced toward the east. But in the second half of this verse, he says the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple. Revised Standard Version changes the Hebrew text here, which reads “the water was flowing from under the right side of the temple” (New King James Version ; similarly King James Version, New American Standard Bible, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible, Complete Jewish Bible). When standing in front of the Temple, looking out toward the east, “the right side” is “the south side” (New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, Christian Community Bible, Moffatt; similarly Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). This is the perspective that Ezekiel uses in this verse. According to the Hebrew text, the water was coming from under the southern wall of the Temple, so Revised Standard Version inserts the word threshold (also New Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version) to make this clause consistent with the previous one. It is possible that the difficult Hebrew text can mean this, but Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recommends against it. It is best to assume that Ezekiel first saw the water coming from under the entrance of the Temple and then saw that it was also coming out from under the wall on the right hand side of the doorway as well. This may be due to the fact that Ezekiel and his guide approached the front of the Temple from the northern side (after all, they went out through the north gateway in verse 2, which would mean that they did not have to cross the flow of the water).
South of the altar means the water flowed past the south side of the altar, which stood in front of the entrance of the Temple.
A model for this verse is:
• Then my guide led me back to the entrance of the Temple. I was surprised to see water coming out from underneath the entrance [or, doorstep] of the Temple, which faced east. The water flowed toward the east. And there was water flowing out from under the wall on the southern side of the doorway too. The water flowed past the altar, on the south side of the altar.
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.