pray / prayer

The Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and Greek that is translated as “pray” (or “prayer”) in English is often translated as “talking with God” (Central Pame, Tzeltal, Chol, Chimborazo Highland Quichua, Shipibo-Conibo, Kaqchikel, Tepeuxila Cuicatec, Copainalá Zoque, Central Tarahumara).

Other solutions include:

  • “to beg” or “to ask,” (full expression: “to ask with one’s heart coming out,” which leaves out selfish praying, for asking with the heart out leaves no place for self to hide) (Tzotzil)
  • “to cause God to know” (Huichol)
  • “to raise up one’s words to God” (implying an element of worship, as well as communication) (Miskito, Lacandon) (source of this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Shilluk: “speak to God” (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)
  • Mairasi: “talk together with Great Above One (=God)” (source: Enggavoter, 2004)
  • San Blas Kuna: “call to one’s Father” (source: Claudio and Marvel Iglesias in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 85ff. )
  • Ik: waan: “beg.” Terrill Schrock (in Wycliffe Bible Translators 2016, p. 93) explains (click or tap here to read more):

    What do begging and praying have to do with each other? Do you beg when you pray? Do I?

    “The Ik word for ‘visitor’ is waanam, which means ‘begging person.’ Do you beg when you go visiting? The Ik do. Maybe you don’t beg, but maybe when you visit someone, you are looking for something. Maybe it’s just a listening ear.

    When the Ik hear that [my wife] Amber and I are planning trip to this or that place for a certain amount of time, the letters and lists start coming. As the days dwindle before our departure, the little stack of guests grows. ‘Please, sir, remember me for the allowing: shoes, jacket (rainproof), watch, box, trousers, pens, and money for the children. Thank you, sir, for your assistance.’

    “A few people come by just to greet us or spend bit of time with us. Another precious few will occasionally confide in us about their problems without asking for anything more than a listening ear. I love that.

    “The other day I was in our spare bedroom praying my list of requests to God — a nice list covering most areas of my life, certainly all the points of anxiety. Then it hit me: Does God want my list, or does he want my relationship?

    “I decided to try something. Instead of reading off my list of requests to God, I just talk to him about my issues without any expectation of how he should respond. I make it more about our relationship than my list, because if our personhood is like God’s personhood, then maybe God prefers our confidence and time to our lists, letters, and enumerations.”

In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning (click or tap here to read more):

  • For Acts 1:14, 20:36, 21:5: kola ttieru-yawur nehla — “hold the waist and hug the neck.” (“This is the more general term for prayer and often refers to worship in prayer as opposed to petition. The Luang people spend the majority of their prayers worshiping rather than petitioning, which explains why this term often is used generically for prayer.”)
  • For Acts 28:9: sumbiani — “pray.” (“This term is also used generically for ‘prayer’. When praying is referred to several times in close proximity, it serves as a variation for kola ttieru-yawur nehla, in keeping with Luang discourse style. It is also used when a prayer is made up of many requests.”)
  • For Acts 8:15, 12:5: polu-waka — “call-ask.” (“This is a term for petition that is used especially when the need is very intense.”)

Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.

complete verse (Luke 1:10)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 1:10:

  • Noongar: “So Zechariah went into God’s temple. Outside, many people were praising God because the incense was burning.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “So, while the people prayed outside, Zakharia entered into the House of God to burn the incense.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “The crowds of people were there outside praying while the incense was being burned.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And while he was still doing that there were many people outside praying to God.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “When the proper time came, he was in the Temple burning the incense while meanwhile the people gathered outside were praying.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “While the incense was being burned, the crowd of people who were gathered in the like-a-yard of the Templo were praying.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Luke 1:10

Exegesis:

kai connects the clause of vv. 8f, expressing an event, with the clause of v. 10, which describes an accompanying circumstance. The relevance of mentioning this circumstance becomes clear in v. 21. Several translations shift from co-ordination of vv. 8f and 10 to subordination of v. 10 to vv. 8f, e.g. “while all the throng of people was outside” (An American Translation, cf. also Moffatt, Brouwer, Menge).

pan to plēthos … tou laou ‘the whole body of the people.’

plēthos ‘large number,’ ‘multitude’ but often denoting a body of people gathered for religious fellowship or worship (cf. e.g. Acts 15.30; 19.9; also Lk. 19.37 where it refers to the body or community of Jesus’ disciples).

laos ‘people,’ ‘crowd,’ in the latter meaning without religious connotation (so in the majority of occurrences in Luke). Several translators render pan to plēthos tou laou in one expression, as ‘all the people’ (Twentieth Century New Testament, Williams) where both plēthos and laos are taken in a non-religious meaning. Others (New English Bible, The Four Gospels – a New Translation, Phillips) render ‘the whole’ or ‘the crowded congregation,’ without indicating which Greek word is given a religious meaning. If plēthos is taken in its religious sense, the translation is ‘the whole worshipping body of the crowd’ and the genitive is definitive: ‘consisting of the crowd’; if laos is taken to mean ‘the people of God in worship,’ the translation is ‘the whole crowd of the (worshipping) people.’ Both interpretations admit of the translations of New English Bible, The Four Gospels – a New Translation and Phillips, but the former interpretation is more probable.

ēn … proseuchomenon exō: three interpretations are possible: (1) ēn may be independent ‘was there’ or ‘there was’; (2) ēn may go with proseuchomenon as a periphrastic imperfect: ‘was praying’ or ‘was in prayer’ (the use of a participle with a form of einai ‘to be’ instead of the imperfect is common in the N.T. and serves to emphasize the durative aspect); (3) ēn may go with exō, ‘was outside, praying.’ The article to (plēthos) makes (1) highly improbable, and the order of the Greek words suggests (2), but translations as “stayed outside and prayed” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation) do no violence to the sense of the Greek text, since the emphasis is on the fact that the people were outside while Zechariah had gone into the temple where was the scene of what was to happen.

exō ‘outside,’ here outside the temple building (naos) but within the temple precincts (hieron).

tē hōra tou thumiamatos ‘at the hour,’ or, ‘time of the incense offering.’

hōra ‘hour,’ here of the time when something takes place.

thumiama ‘incense offering’; incense offerings were burnt at sunrise and at sunset. Probably, though not quite certain, the evening incense is meant here because of the crowd that is present, cf. Acts 3.1.

Translation:

When the verse is rendered as an independent sentence, the transition from v. 9 to v. 10 may require special care. In some cases a connective like ‘meanwhile’ may suffice, but in others a more explicit transition must be made, e.g. by adding some such phrase as, ‘when he was doing so’; or by moving forward the final phrase, e.g., ‘while he burnt it, all the people were praying…’ (Tboli), similarly in Shipibo-Conibo, which moreover has to state explicitly that Z. entered the sanctuary, and therefore renders v. 9b as statement not of purpose but of performance, ‘And so he entered deep in God’s house, in order to burn….’

The whole multitude of the people, interpreted as having no specific religious connotation, can be rendered, ‘very many people,’ ‘a very big heap of men’ (Sranan Tongo), and cf. on “multitudes” in 3.7. If the other interpretation is followed, one may say, ‘all those who gathered there for worship.’ For people cf. below on v. 17.

Outside (i.e. outside the place where Zechariah was officiating, i.e. the sanctuary) usually is easy to translate, but some renderings of Gr. naos ask for specific adjustments; thus the Balinese version uses ‘in the middle court,’ the term indicating the court in front of the ‘inner-part.’

At the hour of incense, or, ‘when the incense was burnt/offered,’ ‘when the incense-offering was made,’ or, ‘when Zechariah burnt those things of smell of pleasantness’ (Kituba).

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.

SIL Translator’s Notes on Luke 1:10

1:10a

at the hour of the incense offering: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as at the hour of the incense offering refers to one of the two times during each day when a priest entered the temple alone and burned incense. One time was in the morning, and one was in the evening. The events that are described in this paragraph happened at one of these times.

In some languages it may be necessary to say who burned incense. If this is true in your language, you may be able to say:

At/during the time when ⌊Zechariah⌋ was burning incense…

1:10b

the whole congregation: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the whole congregation is literally “all the crowd of the people.” It refers to the crowd of people who gathered in the temple courts.

was praying: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as was praying indicates that the people were speaking to God.

Some languages may use different words to refer to specific kinds of prayer, such as requests, thanks, or praise. Use a term that is natural in your language to refer to prayer in general. Avoid a term that may imply magical or meaningless words.

Some other ways to translate this are:

were talking to God
-or-
were asking/begging God

outside: The word outside refers to the area outside the temple building. The people were worshiping in one of the courtyards that were part of the temple area. The leaders did not allow the people to go into the temple building itself. Only certain priests could go there.

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