The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that is translated as “naked” in English is translated in Enlhet with a figure of speech: “(one’s) smoothness.” (Source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 24ff. )
In Elhomwe the word for “naked” is “shameful to use, and would never be used by a preacher in church.” Therefore “without clothes” is used. (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
In Cherokee it is translated as “being in a bodily state.” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 30)
In the Catholic Mandarin ChineseSigao version and the Protestant Union Version, historical Chinese idioms are used: chìshēn lòutǐ (赤身露體 / 赤身露体) or chìshēn luǒtǐ (赤身裸體 / 赤身裸体): “bare and uncovered body.” (Source: Toshikazu S. Foley in Hong Kong Journal of Catholic Studies, 2011, p. 45ff.)
2:1 God had finished creating the heavens and the earth and everything in them. This took seven days, so God worked for seven days creating the heavens and the earth and all the things He placed in them.
2:2 On the seventh day God rested.
2:3 God blessed the seventh day as His own special day. Why? Because he had completed His work creating the heavens and the earth and on this day He rested.
2:4 So that is it.
The heavens and the earth were created by Yahweh a very long time ago. This story is about what happened afterwards.
2:5 The earth had not yet grown green grass or trees. Why? Because Yahweh had not yet made it rain on the earth. There was also no one to sow the land and take care of the plants.
2:6 From deep within the earth, water sprang up and spread over the ground [mud]. This was used to create human.
2:7 Yahweh took this mud from the ground and formed a human. And Yahweh breathed life into the human and he inhaled and became living.
2:8 In the east, Yahweh planted a garden, He named this garden Eden. Then Yahweh took the human he created and placed him in the garden.
2:9 In the garden there were beautiful trees of every different kind that all produced fruits that were good to eat. Among all these trees stood one tree in the middle of the garden that was the tree of life. Next to it was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If someone eats from the tree of life, they will live forever. If they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they will come to know good and evil.
2:10 A river flowed out of the garden of Eden that nourished the trees. It parted and became four rivers.
2:11 The first river was called Pishon which flowed out into the land called Havilah. Havilah had these three things: a lot of gold,
2:12 Bdellium [gum from a tree that is used to make fragrance] and onyx [a shiny black stone].
2:13 The second river Gihon, which flowed out into the land called Cush.
2:14 The third river called Tigris, flowed out into the land called Assyria in the east. And the fourth river was called Euphrates
2:15 Yahweh placed the human in the garden of Eden to work and take care of it.
2:16 Yahweh commanded the human, “You may eat from any tree in this garden.
2:17 But the tree in the middle- the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat from this tree. If you disobey me and eat from this tree your life will be ruined and you will die.”
2:18 Yahweh looked at the human and said, “He is lonely, this is not good. I will create another person to help him.”
2:19 Yahweh had already created all the animals. He called all the animals to the man, all the four-legged beasts, the crawling creatures and winged animals, He called them to the man.
2:20 And the man gave names to all the animals. The man gave names to all the animals, to the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the forest, he named them all. The man saw that there were many, many animals but none was human like him.
2:21 So Yahweh caused the man to fall into a very deep sleep. As he slept, Yahweh took one of his ribs from his body and then healed his skin.
2:22 Then Yahweh used the man’s rib to create a woman. He sent her to the man. The man awoke and saw the woman.
2:23 He said, “Finally! A person like me. We are both bone and flesh. We are the same. She was created from my rib. She is ‘woman,’ my companion.”
2:24 This is why a man leaves his mother, his father and family to find a woman who will become his wife and they two will become one.
2:25 The man and the woman were both naked, but they were not ashamed.
Back-translation by Amakedia Wallen, coordinated by Tashi Widmer
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Genesis 2:25:
Kankanaey: “Then he took the rib that he had removed and he turned-it-into a woman. When the man got-up/woke-up, right-there was the woman that God had taken to him. They two were naked, but they were not ashamed. The man said, ‘Now this is the one that suits me, because my bone, that is her bone just the same, and my flesh (muscle), that is her flesh also. I name her woman, because she came-from man.’ That is the reason that a man leaves his father and mother so-that he will take-into-his-home his wife, and they will become one.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Newari: “Even though the husband and wife were both naked, they felt no shame.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “At that time, even-though the two of them were naked, they were- not -ashamed.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “Although the man and his wife were naked, they were not ashamed about that.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated as “donkey” in English was translated in the 1900 Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) translation (a newer version was published in 2000) as siutitôĸ or “‘something with big ears.” “[This] is based on the word siut ‘ear’ combined with the same suffix –tôĸ (-tooq).” (Source: Lily Kahn & Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi in The Bible Translator 2019, p. 125ff.)
These Hebrew and Greek words (with the exception of pōlos and hupozugion — see discussion below) all definitely refer to the Domestic Donkey equus asinus. However the different words do have slight semantic differences among them.
Chamor and onos are the generic words for donkey while ’athon (feminine gender) refers specifically to a saddle donkey or a donkey used for riding. A saddle donkey is usually a large strong female donkey the males are too difficult to control when they are near a female in heat. The Hebrew word is derived from a root that means “strong”.
‘Ayir refers to the young male or jack donkey (probably with an emphasis on its liveliness and the difficulty in controlling it since the Hebrew root means something like “frisky”).
Onarion means a young donkey of either sex. Some languages will have a special word for a young donkey. This will be appropriate for translating onarion.
The word hupozugion often translated “donkey,” actually indicates any beast of burden. Walter Bauer, the famous German New Testament scholar, has argued very convincingly that the animal referred to in Matthew 21:5 in the expression epi pōlon huion hupozugiou is the foal of a horse not a donkey (1953:220-229). In some languages it will be possible to express this in a way that does not designate a specific species of animal`, as in “beast of burden.”
Pōlos usually refers to a foal, that is a young horse, unless a word for donkey follows.
Donkeys are domestic animals belonging to the same family as the horse, but they are smaller and have longer ears. The donkey bred and used in the Middle East is the domesticated Nubian or Somali Wild Ass Equus Asinus africanus. In its original wild state this was a gray ass with pale, whitish belly and dark rings on the lower part of the legs. It was domesticated in Egypt as early as 2500 B.C. In its domesticated version, as a result of interbreeding with donkeys from Europe and Persia, the donkey came to be a variety of colors from dark brown, through light brown to the original gray and occasionally white. The Hebrew chamor comes from a root meaning “reddish brown.”
Donkeys are good pack animals being able to carry as much as the larger mule without the latter’s unpredictable moods. They also have great stamina and are easy to feed since they eat almost any available vegetation. Larger individual animals (usually females) are also often used for riding.
Donkeys were highly prized in biblical times especially females since they were suitable for packing and riding and had the potential for producing offspring. Donkeys were seen as man’s best friend in the animal kingdom. They were the common man’s means of transport and many ordinary families owned a donkey. They were used for plowing and for turning large millstones as well as a means of transport.
Today domestic donkeys are found all over savannah Africa the Middle East South and Central Asia Europe Latin America and Australia. They do not seem to be reared in rain forest or monsoon areas but they are nevertheless often known in these areas.
A donkey was considered to be a basic domestic requirement and thus the number of donkeys available was a means of measuring the relative prosperity of a society at any given time. While only powerful political or military people rode horses (which were usually owned by the state) the common people rode donkeys. This is the significance of the passage in Zechariah 9:9: the victorious king would return to the city riding a donkey thus identifying himself as a common Israelite rather than a victorious warlord.
In the majority of languages there is a local or a borrowed word for donkey. This is the obvious choice. In areas of Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea, West Africa, and other places, where donkeys are rare or unknown, the word from the dominant major language or trade language (for example, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, or Arabic) is often transliterated.
In most contexts ’athon should be translated by the equivalent of “female” donkey, but in some contexts riding donkey is better.
‘Ayir should be translated according to the specific context. In Genesis 32:15 the translation should definitely be the equivalent of “male donkey”, and probably also in Judges 10:4 and Judges 12:14. The significance of these latter passages is that female donkeys were the more normal choice of mount.
In Job 11:12 the emphasis is probably on the friskiness of the donkey, and the translation should be the equivalent of “He ties his young donkey to a grapevine, his frisky young ass to the best of the vines” (indicating a certain amount of irresponsibility, and perhaps extravagance).
In Job 11:12 and Zechariah 9:9 the obvious emphasis is on the youth of the donkey, so the equivalent of “colt”, “foal”, “young donkey”, and so on should be used.
This verse, which pictures the couple in the garden as being innocently naked, anticipates 3.7, in which they become aware of their nakedness.
And the man and his wife were both naked: naked means “totally naked, without any clothing.”
Not ashamed renders the reflexive form of the Hebrew verb “to have shame”; and this form suggests a reciprocal action, that is, “they did not feel ashamed of each other” or “they were not ashamed of each other.” Bible en français courant says “but without feeling any embarrassment with each other,” and New English Bible “they had no feeling of shame towards one another.” Shame is the painful consciousness of having done or thought something that is recognized as wrong or unacceptable; it is generally most intense in the presence of other people. Many languages express this feeling in figurative terms; for example, “to have burning cheeks,” “to lower the head,” or “to have a dry tongue.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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