Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Judges 10:4:
Kupsabiny: “Jair had thirty sons and each had a donkey which he rode around on. Those sons had thirty cities in Gilead which are called the Villages of Jair until today.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “He had 30 sons who rode on 30 donkeys. They also had 30 cities in the land of Gilead. Even till today their cities are called Havvoth-jair.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “He had 30 children, and each of them had a donkey to-ride-upon. They were the ones-who-ruled-over the 30 towns in Gilead which are- now -called the towns of Jair.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “He had thirty sons, and each of them had his own donkey to ride on. They each controlled a different town in the Gilead region. That region is still named ‘The Towns of Jair’.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “donkey” in English was translated in the 1900 Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) translation (a newer version was published in 2000) as siutitôĸ or “‘something with big ears.” “[This] is based on the word siut ‘ear’ combined with the same suffix –tôĸ (-tooq).” (Source: Lily Kahn & Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi in The Bible Translator 2019, p. 125ff.)
These Hebrew and Greek words (with the exception of pōlos and hupozugion — see discussion below) all definitely refer to the Domestic Donkey equus asinus. However the different words do have slight semantic differences among them.
Chamor and onos are the generic words for donkey while ’athon (feminine gender) refers specifically to a saddle donkey or a donkey used for riding. A saddle donkey is usually a large strong female donkey the males are too difficult to control when they are near a female in heat. The Hebrew word is derived from a root that means “strong”.
‘Ayir refers to the young male or jack donkey (probably with an emphasis on its liveliness and the difficulty in controlling it since the Hebrew root means something like “frisky”).
Onarion means a young donkey of either sex. Some languages will have a special word for a young donkey. This will be appropriate for translating onarion.
The word hupozugion often translated “donkey,” actually indicates any beast of burden. Walter Bauer, the famous German New Testament scholar, has argued very convincingly that the animal referred to in Matthew 21:5 in the expression epi pōlon huion hupozugiou is the foal of a horse not a donkey (1953:220-229). In some languages it will be possible to express this in a way that does not designate a specific species of animal`, as in “beast of burden.”
Pōlos usually refers to a foal, that is a young horse, unless a word for donkey follows.
Donkeys are domestic animals belonging to the same family as the horse, but they are smaller and have longer ears. The donkey bred and used in the Middle East is the domesticated Nubian or Somali Wild Ass Equus Asinus africanus. In its original wild state this was a gray ass with pale, whitish belly and dark rings on the lower part of the legs. It was domesticated in Egypt as early as 2500 B.C. In its domesticated version, as a result of interbreeding with donkeys from Europe and Persia, the donkey came to be a variety of colors from dark brown, through light brown to the original gray and occasionally white. The Hebrew chamor comes from a root meaning “reddish brown.”
Donkeys are good pack animals being able to carry as much as the larger mule without the latter’s unpredictable moods. They also have great stamina and are easy to feed since they eat almost any available vegetation. Larger individual animals (usually females) are also often used for riding.
Donkeys were highly prized in biblical times especially females since they were suitable for packing and riding and had the potential for producing offspring. Donkeys were seen as man’s best friend in the animal kingdom. They were the common man’s means of transport and many ordinary families owned a donkey. They were used for plowing and for turning large millstones as well as a means of transport.
Today domestic donkeys are found all over savannah Africa the Middle East South and Central Asia Europe Latin America and Australia. They do not seem to be reared in rain forest or monsoon areas but they are nevertheless often known in these areas.
A donkey was considered to be a basic domestic requirement and thus the number of donkeys available was a means of measuring the relative prosperity of a society at any given time. While only powerful political or military people rode horses (which were usually owned by the state) the common people rode donkeys. This is the significance of the passage in Zechariah 9:9: the victorious king would return to the city riding a donkey thus identifying himself as a common Israelite rather than a victorious warlord.
In the majority of languages there is a local or a borrowed word for donkey. This is the obvious choice. In areas of Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea, West Africa, and other places, where donkeys are rare or unknown, the word from the dominant major language or trade language (for example, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, or Arabic) is often transliterated.
In most contexts ’athon should be translated by the equivalent of “female” donkey, but in some contexts riding donkey is better.
‘Ayir should be translated according to the specific context. In Genesis 32:15 the translation should definitely be the equivalent of “male donkey”, and probably also in Judges 10:4 and Judges 12:14. The significance of these latter passages is that female donkeys were the more normal choice of mount.
In Job 11:12 the emphasis is probably on the friskiness of the donkey, and the translation should be the equivalent of “He ties his young donkey to a grapevine, his frisky young ass to the best of the vines” (indicating a certain amount of irresponsibility, and perhaps extravagance).
In Job 11:12 and Zechariah 9:9 the obvious emphasis is on the youth of the donkey, so the equivalent of “colt”, “foal”, “young donkey”, and so on should be used.
The kind of supplementary material in this verse, which may originate from oral sources, is contained in the descriptions of some of the other minor judges (see, for example, verse 12.9).
And he had thirty sons who rode on thirty asses; and they had thirty cities: The Hebrew waw conjunction rendered And serves to add information about this judge. Translators can retain or omit it. The three occurrences of the numeral thirty give this passage the flavor of a folktale. This number also appears in the description of other minor judges (see verse 12.9, verse 14). Though thirty sons may be considered a large number, in polygamous societies this is certainly not unusual. The Hebrew word for sons may refer to children, but it is common in the Bible for only the sons to be in view.
The Hebrew term for asses (ʿayir) is rare and is not the same one used earlier in verse 1.14. This word is probably used here because it creates a play on words with the word for cities (ʿir). Who rode on thirty asses does not just indicate their mode of transportation. In the Ancient Near East riding a donkey was a symbol of leadership and prosperity, as kings, nobles, and the rich used this mode of transportation. Saying that each son had his own donkey is a way of saying all the sons were rich and important. Contemporary English Version includes a footnote to explain this. Some translators may wish to make this idea explicit in the text by beginning with “Jair had thirty sons, all important men, who each rode his own donkey….”
Instead of thirty cities, the Hebrew text has “thirty asses.” This repetition is clearly a case of an error that is introduced into the text when the copyist mistakes a word for one nearby. Here the Hebrew word for “asses” (ʿayarim) has been written in the place of the word for cities (ʿarim). The only difference between these two Hebrew nouns is the letter y. In cases of such an error translators should follow the emended text, which is cities here. These cities were not large, so they can be called “towns” (New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, Revised English Bible) or even “villages” (Parole de Vie).
Called Havvoth-jair to this day: Each of Jair’s sons ruled over a town, and their group of thirty towns was known as Havvoth-jair (meaning “the settlements of Jair”). Revised Standard Version transliterates the Hebrew word for Havvoth, but many versions translate it. For example, Good News Translation has “the villages of Jair.” Translation is probably better than transliteration here. As elsewhere (verse 1.21), to this day refers to the time of the writer or editor. The name Havvoth-jair is does not refer to any modern city, so we might avoid such a misunderstanding by saying “from that time onward” or “for a long time afterward.”
Which are in the land of Gilead refers to the thirty cities. They were in Gilead (see verse 5.17), which was on the east side of the Jordan River in the territory of Manasseh. This clause may be rendered as an independent one, or it may be attached more closely to thirty cities by saying “thirty towns in Gilead.”
A translation model for this verse is:
• Jair had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys. They were important men, who ruled over thirty towns in Gilead. For years, this region was called “the settlements of Jair.”
Quoted with permission from Zogbo, Lynell and Ogden, Graham S. A Handbook on Judges. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.