וְנָֽשָׂא־נֵ֤ס לַגּוֹיִם֙ מֵרָח֔וֹק וְשָׁ֥רַק ל֖וֹ מִקְצֵ֣ה הָאָ֑רֶץ וְהִנֵּ֥ה מְהֵרָ֖ה קַ֥ל יָבֽוֹא׃
26He will raise a signal for a nation far away
and whistle for a people at the ends of the earth.
Here they come, swiftly, speedily!
In Gbaya, the notion of “a nation far away” and “a people at the ends of the earth” that “come swiftly and speedily” in Isaiah 5:26 is emphasized with mɛtɛ̧ɛ̧-mɛtɛ̧ɛ̧, an ideophone used to describe a large number leaving a place in groups.
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).
Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).
In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
See also nations.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Isaiah 5:26:
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system, one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and others for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are Twents as well as Indonesian and Malay. In the latter two languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
See also first person pronoun referring to God.
Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Gender of God .
在现代汉语中，第三人称单数代词的读音都是一样的（tā），但是写法并不一样，取决于性别以及是否有生命，即男性为“他”，女性为“她”，动物、植物和无生命事物为“它”（在香港和台湾的汉语使用，动物则为“牠”）。这些字的部首偏旁表明了性别（男人、女人、动物、无生命事物），而另一偏旁通常旁提示发音。
到1930年为止，基督教新教《圣经》经过整整一百年的翻译已经拥有了十几个译本，当时的一位圣经翻译者王元德新造了一个“神圣的”代词“祂”，偏旁“礻”表示神明。一般汉语读者会立即知道这字的发音是tā，而这个偏旁表示属灵的事物，因此他们明白这个字指出，三位一体的所有位格都没有性别之分，而单单是上帝。
然而，最重要的新教圣经译本（1919年的《和合本》）和天主教圣经译本（1968年的《思高圣经》）都没有采用“祂”；虽然如此，许多其他的圣经译本采用了这个字，另外还广泛出现在赞美诗和其他基督信仰的书刊中。（资料来源：Zetzsche）
《吕振中译本》的几个早期版本也使用“祂”来指称“上帝”；这个译本的《新约》于1946年译成，整部《圣经》于1970年完成。克拉默斯（Kramers）指出：“‘他’的这种新写法（即‘祂’）产生了一个小问题，就是在指称耶稣的时候，是否一律使用这个敬语代词？《吕振中译本》遵循的原则是，在称呼耶稣这个人的时候，用一般的‘他’，而在称呼耶稣神性的时候，特别是升天之后的耶稣，则用尊称‘祂’。”
Translator: Simon Wong
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 usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, aizus-are-ru (合図される) or “signal” is used.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
He will raise a signal for a nation afar off: The pronoun He refers to Yahweh, the LORD. Translators may need to make this explicit if they begin a new section or even a new paragraph here (see Good News Translation). He will raise a signal is repeated in 11.12. The Hebrew term rendered signal is used 9 times in Isaiah (11.10 [“ensign” in Revised Standard Version], 12 [“ensign”]; 13.2; 18.3; 30.17; 31.9 [“standard”]; 33.23 [“sail”]; 49.22; 62.10 [“ensign”]). The sense of this line is obvious; Yahweh will call a distant foreign nation to come. We have seen already in 2.2-4 that Yahweh is the God of all nations. Here that lordship is demonstrated by his calling one of those far-off nations to be his agent. The identity of the nation is not mentioned, but we will soon learn of it. The phrase raise a signal (which could refer to the practice of raising flags as signals to an army at war) may be rendered as a verb, such as “signal,” “call,” or even “command.” Note that the verb here is specifically future: will raise. Afar off means “distant” (Good News Translation). With the singular “nation,” Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation have followed a text that is not recommended by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project. The Hebrew has the plural “nations.” Where possible, the plural should be kept, as New International Version, Contemporary English Version, and Bible en français courant (1997) have done. (But see the comments on the pronoun it in the next paragraph.)
And whistle for it from the ends of the earth is parallel in form and meaning to the previous line. Whistle is a form of signaling here. Its function is similar to raising banners in the previous line, but it is much less formal. The unusual Hebrew verb for whistle is used only here and in 7.18 in Isaiah. It speaks of God in the most human of terms (so it is anthropomorphic). He is pictured as a human being who only needs to whistle with his mouth to send a signal all over the earth. The Hebrew switches from the plural “nations” in the previous line to the singular it in this line. Some commentators have speculated that the focus has shifted from a general invitation to all nations to the particular nation that will respond. It is more likely that all nations that answer the LORD’s call are considered as a single army unit in this line and in the verses to follow. This kind of shifting from plural to singular is acceptable in Hebrew but may need to be modified in translation. This may mean keeping a plural form throughout these verses (so “them” here), or using a singular form from the beginning of the verse as many versions have done.
The phrase from the ends of the earth could be telling us where God will stand to send his signal, namely, at then ends of the earth. However, there is an ellipsis or gap in the line that makes it clear this is not the case. Supplying the verb “to come” before this phrase brings out the true sense (so Good News Translation). The ends of the earth is an idiom for the regions farthest away that were known at the time; it is a hyperbole and metaphor since the earth does not have ends. Translators should look for a similar idiom in their language.
And lo, swiftly, speedily it comes follows the literal form of the Hebrew text. This line stands alone, which is rather uncommon in Hebrew poetry. It thus calls attention to itself. The word lo translates a common Hebrew word that catches people’s attention. For lo … it comes, New Revised Standard Version has “Here they come…!” which is a good colloquial rendering of the expression in English. We may also say “Look [out], they are coming…!” There is a sense of urgency in this expression, which the translator should match. The two adverbs swiftly and speedily add emphasis. New Jerusalem Bible uses an intensifying construction for the whole line: “and see how swift, how fleet they come!” The singular subject it before the verb comes refers to the enemy nation. It may be translated with a plural as New Revised Standard Version has done if the focus is on the enemy troops: “Here they come, swiftly, speedily!” Translators may harmonize this pronoun with their choice of a singular or a plural for nation in the first line (see the discussion above).
Translation examples for this verse are:
• Yahweh will send a signal to a far off nation,
and whistle for it to come from the ends of the earth.
And look, here it comes [now]! It is speeding on its way!
• The LORD will signal to a distant enemy,
he will summon them from the far corner of the earth.
Look, here they come with great speed!
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 .
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