complete verse (Hebrews 10:28)

Following are a number of back-translations of Hebrews 10:28:

  • Uma: “A person who did not pay attention to the Law of Musa long ago, if there were two or three people who bore-witness that he was indeed guilty, there was no forgiveness, he was punished by death.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “In old times whoever did not honor the law that God gave to Musa, if there were two or three who witnessed that he really did not honor that law, was not shown mercy but was killed.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Any person long ago who did not respect the Law left behind by Moses, if three or two testified to this, he was not pitied but rather, he was killed.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Let us remember what happened to even anyone who totally turned-his-back-on the law of Moses back then. As-long-as there were three or two who testified to his sin, he was sentenced to die without being-pitied.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “For is it not indeed so that, whoever regarded-as-unimportant even just the laws of Moises in the past, (he) really was not forgiven, (but) was killed, if two or three witnesses testify to what he did?” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Now concerning the law which Moses wrote, if anyone rejected that word written in the law, then with the testimony of two or three witnesses, he could not have any mercy, he must be killed.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

law

The Greek that is translated in English as “Law” or “law” is translated in Mairasi as oro nasinggiei or “prohibited things” (source: Enggavoter 2004) and in Noongar with a capitalized form of the term for “words” (Warrinya) (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).

In Yucateco the phrase that is used for “law” is “ordered-word” (for “commandment,” it is “spoken-word”) (source: Nida 1947, p. 198) and in Central Tarahumara it is “writing-command.” (wsource: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

See also teaching / law (of God) (Japanese honorifics).

Moses

The name that is transliterated as “Moses” in English is signed in Spanish Sign Language and Polish Sign Language in accordance with the depiction of Moses in the famous statue by Michelangelo (see here ). (Source: John Elwode in The Bible Translator 2008, p. 78ff. )


“Moses” in Spanish Sign Language, source: Sociedad Bíblica de España

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:


“Moses” in French Sign Language (source )

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).

Even at the time of his translation, Jerome likely was not the only one making that decision as this article alludes to (see also Moses as Pharaoh’s Equal — Horns and All ).

In Swiss-German 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).


“Moses” in Swiss-German Sign Language, source: DSGS-Lexikon biblischer Begriffe , © CGG Schweiz

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

In Estonian Sign Language Moses is depicted with a big beard. (Source: Liina Paales in Folklore 47, 2011, p. 43ff. )


“Moses” in Estonian Sign Language, source: Glossary of the EKNK Toompea kogudus

For more information on translations of proper names with sign language see Sign Language Bible Translations Have Something to Say to Hearing Christians .

See also Moses and Elijah during the Transfiguration.

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Moses .

Translation commentary on Hebrews 10:28

This and the following verses look at the Old Testament, to compare it with the new order. Penalties for breaking the Law of Moses were severe (Deut 17.2-17); the quotation comes from Deuteronomy 17.6; compare Deuteronomy 19.15; 28.15-68.

This apparently simple verse presents a surprising number of translation problems.

The verb translated disobeys has a range of meanings from “declare invalid,” as in 7.18, to “reject.” The word for disobeys is a strong word, used not of incidental sins, but of breaking the whole covenant (Ezek 22.26), for example, by idolatry (Deut 17.2-7), false prophecy (Deut 18.20), or blasphemy (Lev 24.13-16). In order to emphasize the willful disobedience involved in disobeys, it may be well to translate the first part of verse 28 as “Anyone who refuses to obey the laws given through Moses” or “If a person refuses to obey the Law of Moses.”

The main verb, meaning is put to death or “dies,” is in the present tense. It is uncertain whether, even before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Jewish courts had the legal right to inflict the death penalty. People were sometimes lynched, as in Acts 7.57-60, but that is a different matter. The writer is generally more interested in the earlier history of Israel than in current events. Here he is concerned with what the Law demanded, not with how it was applied in his own time. In any case, the verb for is put to death is part of a free quotation. It may therefore be better to translate is put to death as “was put to death.” In some instances, however, it may be necessary to change the passive is put to death into an active form, and therefore to introduce “the authorities” or “the officials”; for example, “the authorities put him to death” or “the officials executed him.”

The phrase without any mercy may be expressed in some languages as an entirely separate clause; for example, “they did not at all show mercy” or “they did not think twice when they put him to death.”

The witnesses should not be emphasized in this verse, but will come into focus in 12.1.

When judged guilty from the evidence of two or more witnesses may best be expressed as a conditional clause; for example, “if two or more witnesses gave evidence against the person and as a result he was judged guilty.”

It may be necessary in some languages to specify what was involved in being witnesses; for example, “if two or more persons saw what the man did and told about it, and if then the man was judged to be guilty.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .