The Hebrew that is translated as “the poor” in English is translated in Chichewa as “people without power.” In Chichewa context this refers to those who are in the lower class in terms of both social status and political influence in a community. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
In Cherokee it is translated as “those who are not doing well.” “The concept of poverty was unknown to Cherokee prior to European arrival due to the sharing of resources among clan members and the shared and welfare tradition known as gadugi (ᎦᏚᎩ). In contrast, the concepts of rich and poor play a large role in the world and message or the New Testament (…) This phrase (‘those who are not doing well’), still used today for ‘poor,’ speaks to a more general understanding of well-being than the presence of monetary resources.” (Source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 45)
The Hebrew, Latin and Greek that is translated in English as “Lord God” or “Lord God” encountered an issue in Tok Pisin. Norm Mundhenk explains why (in The Bible Translator 1985, p. 442ff. ):
“I am not aware of any serious objections to either the word God [for “God”] or Bikpela [for YHWH] alone. However, when trying to translate the expression ‘the Lord God,’ the translators first tried to use Bikpela God. But Bikpela is also an adjective meaning ‘big’ and in the expression Bikpela God, it would usually be understood as “Big God,’ as though there were other smaller gods around also.
“In the Old Testament, as the recent articles have clearly pointed out, the English word ‘Lord‘ often stands for the Hebrew name of God, YHWH, which is usually spelled these days as Yahweh. With this in mind, the name Yawe was tried in Tok Pisin, but it was felt that most readers did not connect this strange name with God. Eventually, we decided to keep Bikpela, but to translate ‘Lord God’ as God, Bikpela, literally ‘God, the Lord.’
“The reason for this decision was really only that the words could be used naturally in this order, without the problem of giving a wrong meaning which we had when putting Bikpela first. It was not until some people asked if it was right to ‘turn around’ the name and the title in this way that we realized that there was really a deeper reason for doing what we did. In fact, for most speakers of Tok Pisin, God is the only God they know, and it seems likely that God is understood as the personal name of God, rather than as a class name. Bikpela, on the other hand, is a class name — there can be more than one Bikpela, though it is recognized that God is the greatest of them and there is no confusion when he is referred to simply as Bikpela. Thus, in Hebrew an expression like ‘YHWH, the God of Israel,’ has the personal name first, followed by the class name explaining who he is. And we have exactly the same situation in Tok Pisin when we say God, Bikpela bilong Isrel. I suspect that in many other languages which have borrowed the word ‘God,’ we might find that it has been borrowed basically as a personal name, rather than as a class name.”
The English that is translated as “says the Lord” or “says the Lord God” is translated in some influential French translations as oracle de Yahvé (La Bible de Jérusalem) oracle du Seigneur (Traduction œcuménique de la Bible), and oracle de l’Éternel (Nouvelle Version Segond Révisée 1978) or “oracle (authoritative statement) of YHWH (or: the Lord).”
Timothy Lloyd Wilt (in The Bible Translator 1999, p. 301ff. ) describes the Hebrew ne’um (adonay) YHWH (quoting S. Meier, 1992) as “a highly marked expression (…) Hebrew does not characteristically repunctuate quoted discourse with reminders of the quote’s source, making this particle’s function quite distinctive and certainly unique in its frequency and distribution.”
The French translations above are emulating this with their distinct wording containing the French oracle.
Similarly, the French translation by Chouraqui uses harangue de or “harangue (or: ‘sermon’) of YHWH” and the English translation by Fox uses Utterance of YHWH. Both of these translations are Jewish translations that attempt to emulate the Hebraic nature of the original text. (Source: Drew Maust) Likewise, the translation by Goldingay (2018) has Yahweh’s declaration, typically set in parentheses: (Yahweh’s declaration).
The translation into Kera marks this by using the equivalent of “the words of me, YHWH” (source: Jackie Hainaut) and a language in West Africa, belonging to the Mande language family, uses a honorific form of “say,” that is only used for speech from God or his prophets. Both of these languages are spoken in francophone Africa.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Isaiah 3:15:
Kupsabiny: “Why are you causing suffering to my people? And why are you oppressing poor people?’” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?" The LORD, God Almighty Says.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “Why are you (plur.) oppressing my people and persecuting the poor?’ This is what the Lord GOD Almighty said.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
What do you mean…? is literally “What to you…?” or “What is it to you…?” This question is rhetorical. Its purpose is to criticize rather than to ask for information. Good News Translation uses a strong affirmation instead: “You have no right….” This is a valid option. The question has two parts that are synonymous: crushing my people and grinding the face of the poor. Both these clauses are highly poetic expressions for oppressing the poor; the second expression is more gruesome than the first one. The leaders were responsible for ensuring that people treated the poor justly, but instead they were taking advantage of them. Crushing my people is a powerful figure for oppression, while grinding the face of the poor goes even further. It suggests that the poor were lying on the ground, with their faces being pushed hard into the dirt by the leaders who placed their feet on the heads of these poor. Both expressions can probably be rendered literally since these figures will be understood in most languages. Contemporary English Version does it by saying “You have crushed my people and rubbed in the dirt the faces of the poor.” However, Good News Translation takes a cautious approach that favors clarity by rendering the second image nonfiguratively, saying “You have no right to crush my people and take advantage of the poor.”
Says the Lord GOD of hosts is a solemn, fixed form used to close off divine speeches. Here the divine title is longer than usual; it is literally “my Lord Yahweh of hosts.” This title occurs eight times in Isaiah (3.15; 10.23-24; 22.5, 12, 14-15; 28.22). It is almost identical to the title used in verse 1 to open the chapter (see the comments there). Since this title is longer than usual, it adds solemnity here to the charge against the nation’s leaders, and to verses 1-15 as a whole.
Alternative translation models for this verse are:
• What do you mean by crushing my people,
by grinding the faces of the poor [into the ground]?”
demands my Lord, Almighty Yahweh.
• You are guilty of crushing my people,
of grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt.”
This is the charge [against you] made by my Lord, Yahweh of hosts.
Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
or “harangue (or: ‘sermon’) of YHWH” and the
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