הַבִּ֨יטוּ֙ אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֣ם אֲבִיכֶ֔ם וְאֶל־שָׂרָ֖ה תְּחוֹלֶלְכֶ֑ם כִּי־אֶחָ֣ד קְרָאתִ֔יו וַאֲבָרְכֵ֖הוּ וְאַרְבֵּֽהוּ׃ ס
2Look to Abraham your father
and to Sarah, who bore you,
for he was but one when I called him,
but I blessed him and made him many.
The Hebrew and Greek that is transliterated as “Sarai” and “Sarah” in English is translated in Spanish Sign Language with the sign depicting coins on a headband, referring to women from the Middle East and North Africa who wear a headband decorated with small coins. (Source: Steve Parkhurst)
“Sarai” and “Sarah” in Spanish Sign Language, source: Sociedad Bíblica de España
Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Sarah .
The Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Aramaic that is translated into English as “(to) bless” or “blessed” is translated into a wide variety of possibilities.
The Hebrew term barak (and the Aramaic term berak) also (and originally) means “kneel” (a meaning which the word has retained — see Gen. 24:11) and can be used for God blessing people (or things), people blessing each other, or people blessing God. While English Bible translators have not seen a stumbling block in always using the same term (“bless” in its various forms), other languages need to make distinctions (see below).
In Bari, spoken in South Sudan, the connection between blessing and knees/legs is still apparent. For Genesis 30:30 (in English: “the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned”), Bari uses a common expression that says (much like the Hebrew), ‘… blessed you to my feet.'” (Source: P. Guillebaud in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 189ff. .)
In Tagbanwa a phrase is used for both the blessing done by people and God that back-translates to “caused to be pierced by words causing grace/favor” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation).
Ixcatlán Mazatec had to select a separate term when relating “to people ‘blessing’ God” (or things of God): “praise(d)” or “give thanks for” (in 1 Cor. 10:16) (“as it is humans doing the ‘blessing’ and people do not bless the things of God or God himself the way God blesses people” — source: Robert Bascom). Eastern Bru and Kui also use “praise” for this a God-directed blessing (source: Bru back translation and Helen Evans in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. ) and Uma uses “appropriate/worthy to be worshipped” (source: Uma back translation).
When related to someone who is blessing someone else, it is translated into Tsou as “speak good hopes for.” In Waiwai it is translated as “may God be good and kind to you now.” (Sources: Peng Kuo-Wei for Tsou and Robert Hawkins in The Bible Translator 1962, pp. 164ff. for Waiwai.)
Some languages associate an expression that originally means “spitting” or “saliva” with blessing. The Bantu language Koonzime, for instance, uses that expression for “blessing” in their translation coming from either God or man. Traditionally, the term was used in an application of blessing by an aged superior upon a younger inferior, often in relation to a desire for fertility, or in a ritualistic, but not actually performed spitting past the back of the hand. The spitting of saliva has the effect of giving that person “tenderness of face,” which can be translated as “blessedness.” (Source: Keith Beavon)
Martin Ehrensvärd, one of the translators for the Danish Bibelen 2020, comments on the translation of this term: “As for ‘blessing’, in the end we in most instances actually kept the word, after initially preferring the expression ‘giving life strength’. The backlash against dropping the word blessing was too hard. But we would often add a few words to help the reader understand what the word means in a given context — people often understand it to refer more to a spiritual connection with God, but in the Hebrew texts, it usually has to do with material things or good health or many children. So when e.g. in Isaiah 19:25 the Hebrew text says ‘God bless them’, we say ‘God bless them’ and we add: ‘and give them strength’. ‘And give them strength’ is not found in the overt Hebrew text, but we are again making explicit what we believe is the meaning so as to avoid misunderstanding.” (Source: Ehrensvärd in HIPHIL Novum 8/2023, p. 81ff. )
See also bless (food and drink), blessed (Christ in Mark 11:9), and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.
See also “Blessed by ‘The Blessing’ in the World’s Indigenous Languages” and Multilingual version of “The Blessing” based on Numbers 6:24-26 .
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).
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you …: The call to consider the past is repeated in this verse, which identifies the metaphors of the previous verse as references to Israel’s ancestors, Abraham and Sarah. The purpose of looking back at this history is to remind the people that the God who blessed and multiplied the nation beginning from the days of Abraham will do the same for them. God remains faithful to his promises. In order to highlight that Look repeats the imperative verb in the previous verse, we advise translators to use the same verb in both verses.
There are several places in the Old Testament outside Genesis where Abraham is mentioned, but they are few (see, for example, 29.22; 41.8; Ezek 33.24). Describing Abraham as your father means that he is the first ancestor of the nation of Israel, its founding figure. Father may be rendered “forefather” or “ancestor” (Good News Translation) in languages where it is used exclusively to refer to an individual’s immediate, biological father (see the comments on 43.27).
Sarah who bore you is the only reference to Sarah in the Old Testament outside Genesis. Who bore you means she is Israel’s mother. Both Abraham and Sarah are honored as the founders of the nation. Who bore you may be rendered “who gave birth to you.” For the first two lines of this verse Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “Consider your ancestor Abraham and your ancestor Sarah!”
For when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him and made him many: The connector for introduces the reason why the LORD calls on his people to reflect on their two ancestors. When he was but one I called him refers to the fact that when God called Abraham to leave Haran and go to the land he promised him (Gen 12.1), Abraham and Sarah had no children. He was but one means Abraham was alone by not having children. It does not mean he was only one year old! Good News Translation makes the sense of this clause clear by saying “he was childless” (similarly Bible en français courant). It may seem strange that the last two lines of this verse refer specifically only to Abraham by using the pronouns he and him. However, he stands for the couple here. So for style or clarity it may be necessary in some languages to render these pronouns as “they” and “them” (see the second example below). All the versions consulted respect the reference to Abraham only, except Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, which translates “They were but a single pair when I called them….”
And I blessed him and made him many recalls Gen 12.2, where God promised to bless Abraham with many descendants (see also Deut 7.12-14). Although Abraham and Sarah had only the one child, Isaac, their descendants were numerous. Made him many means that Abraham and Sarah had countless descendants. The people God addresses here are the latest descendants in the family line going back to Abraham and Sarah.
Translation examples for this verse are:
• Consider Abraham your forefather,
and Sarah who gave birth to you.
When he was childless, I called him,
blessed him, and gave him many descendants.
• Consider your first father Abraham,
and Sarah who gave you birth.
When they were still without a child, I called them,
blessed them, and gave them many children.
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 .
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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
See also pronoun for “God”.
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