21They marched for three days from Nineveh to the plain of Bectileth and camped opposite Bectileth near the mountain that is to the north of Upper Cilicia.
According to Anne Garber Kompaoré (in Le Sycomore 3/2009, p. 34ff. ), there are 4 ways to identify cardinal directions:
1. celestial bodies, especially the sun and certain stars
2. geographical landmarks, for example a mountain, sea, or river (depending on its position or the direction in which the water flows) etc.
3. climatic phenomena, such as the wind and the direction from which rain comes
4. bodily reference points, especially front, back, left, and right, in relation to celestial bodies or geographical landmarks
Following are examples of how these are practically implemented by various languages: (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight)
Celestial Bodies
East and west are often translated by the rising and the setting of the sun (note that the origin of English and other Indo-European languages is “dawn” for “east” and “evening” [i.e. sun-down] for “west”):
Maan: “where the sun comes up” and “where the sun goes down” (source: Don Slager)
Kankanaey: “from the coming-out of the sun “and “going-away of the sun” (source: Kankanaey back-translation)
Northern Emberá: “from where the sun comes up” and “from where the sun falls” (source: Charles Mortensen)
Ejamat “the side where the sun comes from” and “the side where it sets” (source: David Frank in this blog post )
Tzeltal: “where the sun pours-out” (west) (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
Northern Ngbandi: “the sun behind the chief’s house” (east — the chief lives traditionally at the eastern side of the village, therefore he does not get the sunlight into his eyes) and “under the sun” (west)
Northwestern Dinka: “earth behind” (east — the place behind the earth, i.e. the area where the sun rises)
Jula: “salt village” (north — because salt comes from the north, from the Sahara Desert) and “kola village” (south — since kola comes from the coastal region to the south) (source: Garber Kompaoré)
Matumbi: “toward the beach” (East) (the coast is in the eastern direction in Matumbi-speaking areas), “north” and “south” can be defined as above or below another place (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Acoli: “right” (of the local White Nile) (north) and “left” (of the White Nile) (south)
Zande: “interior (dry) land” (east); “place-inside-country” (north / south) — Zande, like a number of other languages, including Matengo and Hehe, traditionally only has three cardinal directions.
Belanda Bor: “lower place” (north) and “higher place” (south)
Turkana: “(up)stream” (north) and (down)stream (south)
Mono (DRC): “water place” (south) (source for this and five above: Mietzner / Pasch)
Climatic Phenomena
Shilluk: “opening westwind” (north) and “opening eastwind” (south)
Swahili used to have six directions. In reducing them to four, kusini and kaskazini which used to refer to south-west and north east respectively (the directions from where the two monsoons blow) have become the terms for “south” and north.” (source for this and one above: Mietzner / Pasch)
Bodily Reference Points
Nuer / Burun: “face” and “sun face” respectively (both: east)
Kalenjin: “eye sun” (east) (this and the one above indicate that the sun is “facing” the spectator from its position in the east:
Shilluk: doesn’t use a fixed position of the speaker, instead it has “eye sun morning” for east and “eye sun evening” for west
Mono (DRC): “foot-sun” (east — the start of the sun’s journey)
Burun: “sun leg” (west — the end of the sun’s journey)
Bari: “back” (north — when people are facing south, north is at their back) (source for this and above: Mietzner / Pasch)
Northern Emberá “the looking [left] hand” (north) and “the real [right] hand” (south) (source: Charles Mortensen)
Morelos Nahuatl: “from above” (north) and “from below” (south) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
When all four directions are mentioned, translators tend to avoid listing the four, sometimes verbose terms, and chose solutions like “all directions” (such as in Maan or Manya (source: Don Slager). Yakan has “from the four corners of the earth” (source: Yakan back-translation) and Western Bukidnon Manobo “from the four directions here on the earth” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo back-translation).
The Hebrew text that gives instructions where to place items in the tabernacle with the help of cardinal directions (north and south) had to be approached in the Bambam translation specific to spacial concepts of that culture. Phil Campbell explains: “There are no words in Bambam for north and south. In Exodus 26:35, God instructs that the table is to be placed on the north side and the lamp on the south side inside the tabernacle. The team wants to use right and left to tell where the lamp and table are located. In many languages we would say that the table is on the right and the lampstand is on the left based on the view of someone entering the tabernacle. However, that is not how Bambam people view it. They view the placement of things and rooms in a building according to the orientation of someone standing inside the building facing the front of the building. So that means the table is on the left side and the lampstand is on the right side.”
Verses 21-28 describe the course of Holofernes’ western campaign, tracing his destructive progress from Nineveh to Palestine, so it will be helpful to begin a new paragraph here. It is hard to take the bewildering geography seriously, but some, Moore especially, make brave attempts both to identify unknown places and to explain the incongruities This gives the author credit for more geographical knowledge than is evident in the confused Greek text before us. In The Macmillan Bible Atlas, there is a map that shows the military deployments and movements in the book of Judith. While tentative, it is helpful, and the only such map to be found easily. Many of the place names in these verses are given in different forms in the manuscripts, but we will not belabor those points here. Other interpreters think the author was simply poorly informed about the geography of the area he had to cover. Interpreters on both sides will probably agree, however, that geography is not the author’s point, so it is surely not the point translators need to major on. What the author is doing in this half chapter is creating an effect. Holofernes, in obedience to his “lord” zigzags across the map in an unstoppable destructive march. He wastes no time getting to Cilicia, where he begins his bloody march southward. He roughly follows the outline given of the rebellious states in 1.7-10. He fights in the mountains, on the plains, and on the seacoast. He levels fortified cities and destroys agricultural areas. He is carrying out the terrible wrath of his god Nebuchadnezzar (compare Isa 2.12-17). He goes to prepare the way of his “lord.”
They marched for three days from Nineveh to the plain of Bectileth … to the north of Upper Cilicia: The plain of Bectileth is an unknown site, but Cilicia was a country in southeastern Asia Minor (Turkey). Upper Cilicia refers to the northern part of the country; therefore north of Upper Cilicia and “north of Cilicia” mean the same thing. From Nineveh that’s quite a march. It is over 300 miles in three days. Both New American Bible and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible try to alleviate this by separating Bectileth from Cilicia. They say Holofernes’ army marches three days toward Bectileth, and from Bectileth sets out toward a second encampment in the mountains north of Cilicia. It is not a convincing attempt. It relies too much on interpreting the sense of some prepositions used here; further, nothing in the Greek really says that Cilicia was the army’s “next” encampment. Translators should follow Revised Standard Version or Good News Translation‘s interpretation. The plain of Bectileth may also be rendered “the flat area around the city of Bectileth.”
Camped opposite Bectileth …: Camped means “set up camp” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version) or “set up their tents.”
An alternative translation model for this verse is:
• They left Nineveh, and after they had marched three days, they reached the plains surrounding the city of Bectileth. They set up their tents across from the city, near the mountains north of Cilicia.
Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Judith. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.
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