The Hebrew that is translated in English as “(you will be) protected” or “(you will) look around you” is translated in Newari as “you see all four sides.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
hope
“Hope is sometimes one of the most difficult terms to translate in the entire Bible. It is not because people do not hope for things, but so often they speak of hoping as simply ‘waiting.’ In fact, even in Spanish, the word esperar means both ‘to wait’ and ‘to hope.’ However, in many instances the purely neutral term meaning ‘to wait’ may be modified in such a way that people will understand something more of its significance. For example, in Tepeuxila Cuicatec hope is called ‘wait-desire.’ Hope is thus a blend of two activities: waiting and desiring. This is substantially the type of expectancy of which hope consists.
In Yucateco the dependence of hope is described by the phrase ‘on what it hangs.’ ‘Our hope in God’ means that ‘we hang onto God.’ The object of hope is the support of one’s expectant waiting. In Ngäbere the phrase “resting the mind” is used. This “implies waiting and confidence, and what is a better definition of hope than ‘confident waiting’.” (Source for this and above: Nida 1952, p. 20, 133)
Other languages translate as follows:
- Mairasi: “vision resting place” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
- Enlhet: “waitings of (our) innermost” (“innermost” or valhoc is a term that is frequently used in Enlhet to describe a large variety of emotions or states of mind — for other examples see here) (source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 24ff. )
- Kwang: “one’s future is restored to one’s soul like a fresh, cool breeze on a hot day.” (Source: Mark Vanderkooi right here )
- Noongar: koort-kwidiny or “heart waiting” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
- Anjam: “looking through the horizon” (source: Albert Hoffmann in his memoirs from 1948, quoted in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 7)
- Ron: kintiɓwi or “put lip” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
- Highland Totonac “wait with expectation” (to offset it from the every-day meaning of hope or wait — source: Hermann Aschmann in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 171ff. ).
- Alekano: “wait not hearing two ears” (meaning to “wait without being double-minded” — source: Ellis Deibler in Notes on Translation June 1986, p. 36ff.)
- Marathi aasha (आशा) with a stronger emphasis on desire
- Tamil: nampikkai (நம்பிக்கை) with a stronger emphasis on expectation (source for this and above: J.S.M. Hooper in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 2ff. )
In Mwera “hope” and “faith” are translated with the same word: ngulupai. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
C.M. Doke looks at a number of Bantu languages and their respective translations of “hope” with slightly varying connotations (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 9ff. ):
- Xhosa and Zulu: themba “hope, expect,” also “have faith in, rely upon”
- Tswana: tsholofelo “hope, expect, look for confidently”
- Southern Sotho: tshepo “trust, rely on, believe in, have confidence in”
- Kuanyama: eteelelo “waiting for”
- Swahili: tumaini “confidence, trust, expectation, hope” (as a verb: “hope, trust, expect, be confident, be truthful, rely on”
- Luganda: okusuubira “hope, trust, expect” also “look forward to, rely upon, anticipate, reckon”
- Chichewa: chiyembekezo “wait for, wait, expect”
- Koongo: vuvu “hope, expectancy, expectation, anticipation”
Syntyche D. Dahou (in Christianity Today, January 2021 or see here the same article in French ) reports on the two different terms that are being used in French (click or tap here to see the details):
“Unlike English, which uses the word hope broadly, the French language uses two words that derive from the word espérer (to hope): espoir and espérance. Both can first refer to something hoped for. In this sense, the word espoir usually refers to an uncertain object; that is, someone who hopes for something in this way does not have the certainty that it will happen (“I hope the weather will be nice tomorrow”). On the other hand, espérance describes what, rightly or wrongly, is hoped for or expected with certainty. It often refers to a philosophical or eschatological object (‘I hope in the goodness of human beings’; ‘I hope for the return of Jesus Christ’).
“When we speak of espoir or espérance, we then have in mind different types of objects hoped for. This difference matters, because both terms also commonly refer to the state of mind that characterizes the hopeful. And this state of mind will be different precisely according to the object hoped for.
“Having espoir for an uncertain yet better future in these difficult times may be a good thing, but it is not enough. Such hope can be disappointed and easily fade away when our wishes and expectations (our hopes) do not materialize.
“The opposite is true with espérance, which is deeper than our desire and wish for an end to a crisis or a future without pain and suffering. To face the trials of life, we need peace and joy in our hearts that come from expecting certain happiness. This is what espérance is: a profound and stable disposition resulting from faith in the coming of what we expect. In this sense, it is similar in meaning to the English word hopefulness.
“If we have believed in the Son of the living God, we have such a hope. It rests on the infallible promises of our God, who knows the plans he has for us, his children — plans of peace and not misfortune, to give us a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). By using the two meanings of the word, we can say that the espérance that the fulfillment of his promises represents (the object hoped for) fills us with espérance (the state of mind).”
trust
The Greek and Hebrew that is translated as “trust (you)” is translated in Una as “put our (my) insides on (you).” (Source: Kroneman 2004, p. 477)
In Luchazi it is translated with tisliela: “to die absolutely completely.” (Source: E. Pearson in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 160ff. )
See also trust with all your heart and Seat of the Mind.
Translation commentary on Job 11:18
And you will have confidence, because there is hope: the verb translated have confidence occurs in 6.20, “they were confident” (Revised Standard Version). The expression means “have a sense of security, live confidently, securely, without fear.” In 7.6 Job complained that he was “without hope,” but Zophar promises him a life full of hope in the future. For a discussion of hope see 4.6. Line 18a may also be expressed “You will gain new confidence and new hope,” “You will look to the future without fear and with confidence,” or “You will have no more fear and will be filled with hope.”
You will be protected and take your rest in safety: protected translates a verb which normally has the sense of “dig or search for something,” and Revised Standard Version has “you will look around” in a footnote. However, these more common meanings do not fit the context. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project gives three suggestions: (1) “and you will be ashamed,” (2) “and you will dig,” and (3) “you will protect.” BDB (Brown, Driver, and Briggs Hebrew-English lexicon) explains the usage here as “search or look carefully about before going to rest.” New International Version follows this with “You will look about you and take your rest in safety.” Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, and others accept a change in the Hebrew text to get “protect,” as in Hebrew Old Testament Text Project‘s third suggestion. However, the implied subject of “protect” is God, as in Good News Translation, “God will protect you.” This seems the best solution and is the one followed by Dhorme and other interpreters. “God will guard you and you will rest without fear,” or “God will keep anyone from harming you, and you will rest securely.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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