13But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.
The name that is transliterated as “Elizabeth” or “Elisabeth” in English means “God of the oath,” “God is her oath,” a worshiper of God,” “my God has sworn.” (Source: Cornwall / Smith 1997 )
The Greek that is translated as “to fear” or “to be afraid” or similar in English is translated in Ashe as agõõi iwei or “hearing fear.” (Source: David Rowbory)
The Greek in the referenced verses that is translated as “pray” or “prayer” in English is translated in the German translation by Fridolin Stier (1989) as “(offer) supplications” (Flehrufe (abhalten) / flehen).
Apali: “God’s one with talk from the head” (“basically God’s messenger since head refers to any leader’s talk”) (source: Martha Wade)
Michoacán Nahuatl: “clean helper of God” (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
Noongar: Hdjin-djin-kwabba or “spirit good” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Wè Northern (Wɛɛ): Kea ‘a “sooa or “the Lord’s soldier” (also: “God’s soldier” or “his soldier”) (source: Drew Maust)
Iwaidja: “a man sent with a message” (Sam Freney explains the genesis of this term [in this article ): “For example, in Darwin last year, as we were working on a new translation of Luke 2:6–12 in Iwaidja, a Northern Territory language, the translators had written ‘angel’ as ‘a man with eagle wings’. Even before getting to the question of whether this was an accurate term (or one that imported some other information in), the word for ‘eagle’ started getting discussed. One of the translators had her teenage granddaughter with her, and this word didn’t mean anything to her at all. She’d never heard of it, as it was an archaic term that younger people didn’t use anymore. They ended up changing the translation of ‘angel’ to something like ‘a man sent with a message’, which is both more accurate and clear.”)
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between. One way to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix mi- (御 or み) is used as in mi-tsukai (御使い) or “messenger (of God).” (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Bender / Belt (2025, p. 2f.) report about the translation of “angel” in Cherokee: “In John, the concept of angel is translated using a descriptive neologism rather than a semantic extension, suggesting the lack of a ready parallel. The plural is dmikahnawadidohi, ‘the law-givers’ or ‘those who go around looking after the medicine.’ Cherokee speakers argue that the Cherokee word for ‘law,’ dikahnawadvsdi, expresses the intent to maintain social, physical, and spiritual health and has at its core the word for ‘medicine,’ mwoli, which encompasses all aspects of social and spiritual well-being, including balance and order (Altman and Belt 2009), much more than the English word. Thus, the Cherokee word for ‘angel’ represents a new perspective on this category of spiritual beings named in the Bible. It does not derive from the concept of messenger present in both its Greek (angelos) and Hebrew (malak) antecedents perhaps because the Cherokee word for ‘messenger,’ atsinvsidasdi, is widely used to translate the foreign lexeme ‘servant.'”
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 1:13:
Noongar: “But the angel said to him, ‘Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God is hearing you, everything in your heart. Elizabeth, your wife, will become pregnant. She will bear your son. You will name him ‘John’.'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “That angel said: ‘Zakharia, do not be afraid, because the Lord God heard your (sing.) request. Your (sing.) wife Elisabet will have a child, a male child. You (sing.) must name that child Yohanes.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “But the angel said to him, ‘Don’t be afraid, Jakariya. God has heard your prayer. Your wife Elisabet will give birth to a boy by you and you shall call him Yahiya.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then that angel spoke to him and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because God has heard your prayer and he will make it so that you will impregnate your wife Elizabeth, and Elizabeth will give birth to a male, and you will call him John.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “But the angel said to him, ‘Do not be afraid Zekarias, because God has heard what you (sing.) requested. Therefore your (sing.) wife Elizabet will become pregnant (lit. having) and she will-give-birth to a male and you (sing.) will then name him Juan.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “But the angel spoke. ‘Zacarias,’ he said, ‘don’t be afraid. God has indeed listened to what you (sing.) have been praying about all this time and now he is responding. Now, your wife Elisabet will have a baby. A male will be born. Juan is what you are to name him.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
eipen de pros auton ho aggelos ‘but the angel said to him.’ de serves here to bring out the contrast between this clause and the preceding. Luke prefers pros auton ‘to him’ to the simple dative autō after verbs meaning ‘to say’ but this has no bearing upon the meaning.
mē phobou ‘do not fear (any longer)’; as in 1.30; 2.10; Mt. 28.10; Mk. 6.50; Rev. 1.17, he whose appearance caused people to fear reassures them so that they will stop fearing. The imperative of the present tense with the negation mē indicates that an existing condition should come to an end.
phobeomai ‘to fear,’ ‘to be afraid,’ ‘to have respect for.’
dioti eisēkousthē hē deēsis sou ‘because your prayer has been heard.’
dioti ‘because,’ here equivalent to causal hoti. The subordination of the clause introduced by dioti or hoti is often rather loose and the conjunction should be rendered ‘for’ (cf. Revised Standard Version). Several translators do not translate it at all, taking the causal force to be implied in the sentence as a whole (cf. e.g. Translator’s New Testament, New English Bible, Phillips). This is justified because the relationship between the two clauses is not directly causal: Zechariah’s prayer has been heard and the angel is there to tell him so; this explains his presence in the temple and implies that Zechariah has nothing to be afraid of.
eisakouō ‘to hear.’ When referring to a prayer being heard it implies that the request is, or, will be granted.
deēsis ‘prayer,’ ‘supplication,’ more specific than proseuchē. As to what Zechariah had been praying for, opinions of commentators vary considerably: (1) for the redemption of Israel and the coming of the Messiah (Plummer, Lagrange, Grundmann who compares Dan. 9.20), because it would not be fitting to pray for the fulfilment of private wishes when in actual priestly service; (2) for a son (Zahn, Weiss, Klostermann, Manson, Creed). There is no need to suppose that the reference is to the prayer he offered when in actual priestly service. It may well be that both interpretations supplement each other: Zechariah had prayed for a son in private and now he offered a prayer for the redemption of Israel. The angel tells him that his prayers have been heard and that he will have a son. But this son will have the task of preparing Israel for the coming redeemer. There is, therefore, no reason to press the question, but if a choice between the alternatives is necessary, (2) is preferable.
kai hē gunē sou … gennēsei huion soi ‘and your wife will bear you a son.’ kai is used here in an explicative sense, because the clause it introduces is best understood as explaining the preceding one, see above. soi is dative of advantage. Several translations express the relationship between these clauses by placing a colon (New English Bible) or semicolon (Phillips) after ‘heard’ without translating kai.
gennaō ‘to beget’ (1.35), ‘to bear’ (here).
kai kaleseis to onoma autou Iōannēn ‘and you shall call his name John.’ The future tense is not a continuation of the preceding clause referring to a future event but has the force of an imperative as often in Hebrew.
kaleō ‘to call’ in several meanings. The normal Greek construction with kaleō when meaning ‘to name’ is with both the noun referring to the person to be named and the name in the accusative, cf. 1.59 ekaloun auto … Zacharian ‘they were going to name him Zechariah.’ Here and in 1.31, under the influence of Old Testament usage the noun referring to the person to be named is replaced by to onoma autou ‘his name,’ cf. Gen. 17.19; 1 Sam. 1.20; Hosea 1.9 in the Septuagint.
Iōannēs Greek transliteration in abbreviated form of the Hebrew name Iehochanan, ‘Yahweh is gracious.’
Translation:
Said to him. Since Javanese and Balinese use an honorific verb, the roles of the participants are sufficiently clear, so that it becomes superfluous, and unidiomatic, to add ‘to him.’
Be afraid, see on “fear” in v. 12.
Your prayer is heard. In many languages ‘to hear a prayer, or supplication’ does not imply its being granted, which concept has to be expressed by such renderings as, ‘allowed’ (Bahasa Indonesia), ‘accepted’ (Toraja-Sa’dan), ‘received favourable hearing’ (Lü Zhenzhong); cf. also, ‘God has accepted/granted the things you have asked-for’ (Kituba).
Your wife Elizabeth. The appositional construction has explicative meaning here (not distinctive meaning: ‘that one of your wives called Elizabeth’). To prevent its being taken in the latter meaning it may be better to make ‘your wife’ appositional to ‘Elizabeth.’ Some languages (e.g. Shipibo-Conibo, Batak Toba, Kituba) have to omit the proper name, because according to receptor language usage the mentioning of names is avoided generally, or a wife’s name is not used when one speaks to her husband, or strangers should not know, or mention, the name of a person’s wife, or for a combination of these reasons.
Will bear you a son. The dative of advantage you sounds unduly redundant in several languages; hence it is omitted e.g. in Hindi, Tboli, Thai, Sundanese. Where ‘child/son’ is obligatorily possessed it may be possible to say, ‘give birth to your child/son.’ The expression to bear a son is variously rendered, e.g. ‘to get a child’ (Sinhala, where the more specific term would sound indecent), ‘to give-birth-to a male/a boy’ (Tboli, Navajo), ‘to have-as-child a male (child)’ (Tae’), ‘to cause-to-come-forth a male child’ (Javanese). In some languages (such as Shipibo-Conibo, which uses ‘to child’) it is better idiom not to specify the child’s sex; this is acceptable, if the name in the next clause is a sufficient indicator of male sex. Son is used in the sense of offspring in the first degree (here and passim), or offspring in further degrees (see on 1.16); or in a figurative sense (10.6; 11.19; 16.8; 20.34 and 36, second occurrence).
You shall call his name may have to be rendered by an optative verbal form, or equivalent phrase, because a wish often can express a kindly worded command, e.g. in Toraja-Sa’dan, Hindi. Call his name, or, ‘name him,’ ‘call him,’ ‘give him the name,’ ‘keep his name’ (Hindi), ‘make his name’ (Batak Toba), ‘set-up/establish (the) name (of) that son’ (Thai), ‘make that baby’s name … for him’ (Apache).
Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.
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