complete verse (Hosea 6:8)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Hosea 6:8:

  • Kupsabiny: “Gilead is a city of sinners.
    Blood is spilled everywhere.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Gilead is a city of wicked people.
    And it is a city full of bloody footprints.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “The city of Gilead is-inhabited by the wicked people including murderers/killers.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “For-example, Gilead is a town/country of many characteristically-sinful-ones. Many are the-ones-they kill there.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • English: “Gilead is a city full of people who do wicked things;
    in the streets are the bloody footprints of those who have murdered others.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Hosea 6:8

Gilead is a city of evildoers: Gilead was a city in the district of Gilead east of the Jordan River. Its precise location is unknown. A city of evildoers means it was “a city full of evil people.” Evildoers is literally “those who do evil.” The Hebrew verb for “do” regularly connotes evil. The Hebrew word for “evil” means “trouble,” but it often has the sense of something evil, done deliberately. It is often associated with lack of justice and with oppression of the poor and needy, which in turn negatively impacts the relationship with Yahweh.

Tracked with blood implies that many murderers lived there and that they left blood-stained footprints all over the town. Good News Translation has simply “murderers,” and Bible en français courant says “who leave behind them bloody tracks.” Some think this line refers to the Gileadites who helped Pekah murder Pekahiah, king of Israel (2 Kgs 15.25). The Hebrew word for tracked is also related to the idea of “deceitful” and has the same root as the name Jacob, so Andersen and Freedman have “a deceitful city, because of bloodshed.” Although the writer may have intended a double meaning here, it seems best to retain tracked as the main intended sense.

A translation model for this verse is:

• Gilead is a city occupied with evildoers,
with tracks of blood all over.

Quoted with permission from Dorn, Louis & van Steenbergen, Gerrit. A Handbook on Hosea. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2020. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

SIL Translator’s Notes on Hosea 6:8

6:8

Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with footprints of blood: This verse indicates that many evil people lived in the city of Gilead. Many of them were murderers.

Here is another way to translate this clause:

Gilead is a city full of evildoers (NET Bible)

tracked with footprints of blood: This phrase is a metaphor. It means that many people murdered others there. Many versions keep the metaphor. For example:

their footprints are bloody (New Century Version)
-or-
its streets are stained with bloody footprints (NET Bible)

Some versions translate the meaning directly. For example:

Gilead is a city full of evil people and murderers (Good News Translation)

© 2021 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.