liquid gushing forth

In Gbaya, the notion of a liquid being released with great force is emphasized in the referenced verses with kput-kput, an ideophone that refers to the gushing forth of a liquid.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

See also fountain.

fresh water and bitter water

The Greek in James 3:11 that is translated into English as “fresh water and bitter (or: brackish) water” is translated into Yatzachi Zapotec as “sweet water and hard water” and in Mezquital Otomi as “clean water and water that is bitter” (source: Ellis Deibler in Notes on Translation July, 1967, p. 5ff.).

complete verse (James 3:11)

Following are a number of back-translations of James 3:11:

  • Uma: “Is there also a spring that brings-forth plain/clear water and bitter water too?” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Does stale/tasteless water and good water spring together from one/the same spring? Certainly not.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “If, for example, there is a well, it’s not possible for both good water and bitter water to come from there.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Is it indeed-the-case (RQ implying of course not) that there is even one spring from-which-comes-out good and brackish water?” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “For from a single spring does water spring which is good and bad-tasting? Of course not.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Now where there springs forth water, there cannot come up good water where there comes up water that is bitter.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on James 3:11

James goes on to explain the evil of producing both good and bad talk at the same time by using three examples, all illustrations from nature. These are expressed in the form of two rhetorical questions, a favorite literary device used several times in this book. The answer expected to these questions is “No.”

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish?: spring, also rendered as “fountain” (so King James Version, Revised English Bible), obviously refers to a natural spring. The verb pour forth appears only here in the New Testament. Referring to a natural spring, the most appropriate meaning is “gush forth” (New American Bible) or “gush out” (Barclay). The word opening occurs elsewhere only in Heb 11.38, where it is rendered as “caves” by Revised Standard Version and “holes” by Good News Translation. It refers to the split in the rock that the water gushes out of. The expression fresh water and brackish is literally “sweet and bitter.” There is no need to speculate what kinds of water these two terms refer to. Most likely it simply represents an idiomatic expression referring to water that is fit for drinking and water that is not. The point James tries to make here is that the two are incompatible, and that they cannot come from the same source. Normally we expect that a spring will pour out only one kind of water, namely fresh water fit for drinking; likewise the tongue is created to utter only one type of speech, namely good speech that blesses God.

In languages where special words exist to refer to two types of water, that which is fit for drinking and that which is not, these words may be used in the translation; for example, “good … bad,” “fresh … salty.” Rhetorical questions expecting a strong negative answer can in some languages be expressed as positive statements, as Good News Translation has done. In arid areas or small islands where springs do not exist, translators will need to use a descriptive phrase; for example, “a place where water flows out of the ground [or, rock].” And this first sentence may be expressed as:
• No place where water flows out of the rock [or, ground] will have both fresh water and bitter [or, salty] water pouring out of the same opening.

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

SIL Translator's Notes on James 3:11

3:11–12

In 3:11–12, James supported his teaching with illustrations from nature. He showed how inconsistent it is for the same mouth to speak both good and bad words.

3:11

Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?: In Greek, this sentence is more literally, “Does a spring pour out both fresh and bitter water from the same hole?” Notice that the Berean Standard Bible has combined the words “spring” and “hole” into one expression.

This is a rhetorical question. James used this rhetorical question to emphasize that a spring certainly does not give two types of water from the same hole.

Some ways to translate this emphasis are:

• As a rhetorical question. For example:

Can clean water and dirty water both flow from the same spring? (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
A spring does not pour out fresh water and bitter water from the same opening, does it? (NET Bible)
-or-
Fresh water and salt water cannot both flow from the same spring, right?

• As a statement. For example:

No spring of water pours out sweet water and bitter water from the same opening. (Good News Translation)
-or-
Obviously good and bad water do not both flow from the same spring.

Translate this sentence in a way that is natural in your language for emphasizing well-known facts.

fresh water: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as fresh water describes water that tastes good. Some other ways to translate this word are:

good water
-or-
drinking water
-or-
clean water

Some English versions (Good News Translation, King James Version) translate this word as “sweet water.” But this does not mean that the water has been sweetened. It is an expression that means that the water is good to drink.

salt water: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as salt water describes water that tastes foul or bitter. It is water that is not good to drink.

This Greek word does not literally mean salt. Some English versions translate it as salt water:

(a) to contrast it with fresh water,

(b) because the word “salt” occurs in 3:12c where is it contrasted with fresh water, and

(c) because salt water is an example of water that is not good to drink.

Some other ways to translate this word are:

dirty/bad water
-or-
polluted water (God’s Word)
-or-
bitter water
-or-
brackish water (Revised English Bible)

spring: A spring is a source of water where the water flows out from a hole in the ground or rock. Some other ways to translate this word are:

water source
-or-
place where water springs/pours out
-or-
place in the ground where water comes/gushes out

In languages where springs are not known, the word spring can be translated as “a water well.”

© 2012 by SIL International®

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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.