The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated into English as “garden” is translated into Naskapi with a word that means “a place for things to grow.”
Doug Lockhart (in Word Alive 2013 ) explains: “‘Garden’ was another term that had no Naskapi equivalent. ‘There are no gardens here,’ Bill [Jancewicz, a translation consultant] explains. ‘So what word do you use for ‘Garden of Eden,’ and have it communicate something logical in Naskapi? We finally came up with a word that means ‘a place for things to grow,’ like a park.'”
Low German translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006: “steppe”
Yakan: “the lonely place” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “a land where no people lived” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “the place with no inhabitants” (source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Cherokee: inage or “far away downstream” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 16)
Matumbi uses various term: lubele (desert, sandy place without water) — used in John 11:54, lupu’ngu’ti (a place where no people live, can be a scrub land, a forest, or a savanna) — used in Mark 1:3 et al.), and mwitu (a forest, a place where wild animals live) — used in Mark 1:13 et al.) (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Chichewa Contemporary translation (2002/2016): chipululu: a place uninhabited by people with thick forest and bush (source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Adioukrou: loj or “savannah” — “land that is not village, nor forest, nor field (source: Hill 2006)
Note that in Luke 15:4, usually a term is used that denotes pastoral land, such as “eating/grazing-place,” in Tagbanwa (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation).
In the Pitjantjatjara translation, the Hebrew in Joel 2:3 that is translated as “desolate wilderness” or “desert waste” in English was translated with “totally destroyed.”
Translation consultant Sam Freney (in this article) explains: “I noticed they captured the lush ‘before’ picture like the garden of Eden, but they didn’t talk about the aftermath as a ‘desert.’ Instead, they said it was ‘totally destroyed.’ When I asked the team about this, it turned out that there’s not really a good word for ‘desert’ they could use here. I found this fascinating –- after all, Pitjantjatjara is a ‘Western Desert Language’, and traditional Pitjantjatjara lands are in the central Australian desert around and to the south of Uluru.
“But this is a case where trying to come up with an ‘accurate’ term for the word ‘desert’ would result in a less accurate translation. For a start, there’s no obvious word to choose so it’s going to end up sounding at least a bit unnatural. But the communicative effect of choosing a word that reflects the kind of land the Pitjantjatjara people live in would knock the impact of this verse down a whole lot. You can imagine the response: ‘Before, the land was beautiful and very green, but after this enormous destructive army came through it was just like the landscape where we’ve lived for thousands of years.’”
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Joel 2:3:
Kupsabiny: “Those soldiers are like a fire that destroys the bush. (They) spare no thing that is in front of them. Before those soldiers raided that place was like the garden of Eden and/but where they have passed through becomes like a desert. There is nothing that those soldiers leave behind.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “A fire devours before them and a flame burns behind them. Ahead of them the land is like the garden of Eden, and behind them like a barren desert. And no one will be able to escape from them.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “One-after-another/[lit. follow-follow] the locusts which seemed-like fire attacked. Before they attacked the ground seemed-like/as-if the garden/field of Eden, but when- they now -attacked, it seemed-like/as-if it (was) now a desert. No plant at-all was-saved from them.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
This verse describes what happens to the countryside as the locusts (or, army) advance. Some armies systematically destroyed not only the buildings but the agricultural land as well, as they advanced. This verse is ambiguous; it is not clear whether it describes the plague of locusts, or the arrival of an enemy army that is similar to the plague of locusts experienced in chapter 1. Good News Translation clearly translates according to the interpretation that locusts are coming. Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation have a stanza break here, but De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling places it better in the middle of the previous verse, where the description of the enemy attack begins.
Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns: These two lines are parallel and almost synonymous. Fire equals flame, and devours equals burns, but before them is in contrast with behind them, indicating that the destruction is complete as the advancing group moves along. For the use of fire and flame together, see the comments on 1.19. They are used here as metaphors for total destruction. Revised Standard Version keeps these two metaphors, but Good News Translation changes them to a single simile, saying “Like fire they eat up the plants.” Many languages may find this model helpful.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but after them a desolate wilderness: The contrast of before them and after them is repeated in these lines, and similar information is given, but this time a different picture is used. Here it may be helpful to render these phrases as “before they pass … after they pass” or “where they have not passed … where they have passed.” The garden of Eden refers to the beautiful place where Adam and Eve lived before they sinned (see Gen 2.8). It is the picture of a perfect garden, with plentiful vegetation and a variety of plants, and the land of Judah is compared to it with poetic exaggeration. But after the attackers have passed, it is a desolate wilderness. The Hebrew word for wilderness normally refers to an open place where no people live, but which can be used as pastureland for cattle. However, the word for desolate further describes it as a place where there is now nothing at all, whether plants or animals. Good News Translation says “a barren desert.”
And nothing escapes them: This line emphasizes the completeness of the destruction. Good News Translation makes it a separate sentence and revises the previous two lines for clarity and good English style. Alternatively, this line could be translated “there is nothing that they do not destroy” or “they destroy everything.” The receptor language may have a poetic device to emphasize the total devastation of the land.
Quoted with permission from de Blois, Kees & Dorn, Louis. A Handbook on Joel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2020. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
A fire consumes/destroys everything in front of it, -or-
Before that army/horde a fire is burning, -or-
Fire burns everything before the soldiers/warriors ⌊arrive⌋
2:3b and behind them a flame scorches.
and flames follow it. -or-
and after it there is/are ⌊more⌋ fire/flames. -or-
and blazes behind them ⌊after they are gone⌋ .
2:3c The land before them is like the Garden of Eden,
The land in front of the army is like the garden of Eden, -or-
When/Before they arrive, the land is as ⌊beautiful⌋ as the garden in Eden was.
2:3d but behind them, it is like a desert wasteland—
but after ⌊the army has passed through⌋ it is an empty/ruined wasteland. -or-
But when they leave, ⌊nothing remains except⌋ a desert.
2:3e surely nothing will escape them.
Nothing can live through it/this. -or-
No living thing can survive their ⌊coming/passing⌋ . -or-
Everything is dead.
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