The Greek that is typically translated as “eternity,” “forever,” or “forever and ever” in English are translated in Mairasi as “mashed out infinitely.” Lloyd Peckham explains: “Bark cloth required pounding. It got longer and wider as it got pounded. Similarly, life gets pounded or mashed to lengthen it into infinity. Tubers also get mashed into the standard way of serving the staple food, like the fufu of Uganda, or like poi of Hawaii. It spreads out into infinity.” (Source: Lloyd Peckham)
In Lisu the phrase “forever and ever” is translated as ꓕꓲꓽ ꓞꓲꓼ ꓕꓲ ꓑ — thi tsi thi pa, verbatim translated as “one – lifetime – one – world.” This construction follows a traditional four-couplet construct in oral Lisu poetry that is usually in the form ABAC or ABCB. (Source: Arrington 2020, p. 57f.)
In Makonde it is often translated as navyaka or “years and years.” (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the Israelites).
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 1:55:
Uma: “He shows his love to us (incl.) descendants of Israel, his slave long ago. He helps us (incl.) like he promised to our (incl.) ancestors long ago. He does not forget his promise to Abraham and his descendants forever.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “For he promised to our (incl.) forefathers, to Ibrahim and his descendants that he would be merciful to us (incl.) forever.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “That which he promised long ago to our ancestors Abraham and his descendents, he has not forgotten. He has helped us, his servants the descendents of Israel. And we the chosen people the descendents of Abraham, he will have pity on us forever,’ said Mary.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Yes, he has remembered to show-mercy/favor to Abraham, so also to us and to all his descendants forever.’ So said Maria in praising God.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “For he promised to Abraham that he would show grace/favor to him and his descendants for ever.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
The name that is transliterated as “Abraham” in English is translated in the vast majority of sign languages, including American Sign Language with the sign signifying “hold back arm” (referring to Genesis 22:12).
In Vietnamese (Hanoi) Sign Language it is translated with a sign for that demonstrates his new destiny. Previously, he had been called to wander from his home, and the name “Abram” reflected this movement (see here). The new sign name is in one location and stays there, showing Abraham will be given a land to call his own. At this time, Abraham was in the southern part of Canaan, which is shown on the base arm by the location near the elbow. (Source: The Vietnamese Sign Language translation team, VSLBT)
“Abraham” in Vietnamese Sign Language, source: SooSL
In Tira it is transliterated as Abaram. The choice of this, rather than the widely-known “Ibrahim,” as used in the Tira translation of the Qu’ran, was to offset it against the Muslim transliteration which originates from Arabic. (Source: J.A. Naudé, C.L. Miller Naudé, J.O. Obono in Acta Theologica 43/2, 2023, p. 129ff. )
Click or tap here to see two short video clips about Abraham (source: Bible Lands 2012)
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal ta (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential ta (祂) is used.”
In that system one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and one for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains in the following way: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
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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 Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme rare (られ) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, kata-rare-ru (語られる) or “speak” is used.
antelabeto Israēl paidos autou ‘he has helped Israel his servant’; paidos autou predicative apposition to Israēl. There is little direct connexion between this phrase and those of vv. 51-53; the latter refer to 1.54-55 groups or categories of people within or outside Israel, here the reference is to the people of Israel as a whole and exclusively.
antilambanō with genitive ‘to lay hold of’ in order to assist or to support; with an undertone of concern and care for the person whom one lays hold of.
pais ‘son’ or ‘servant’; here of the people of Israel as set apart by God for some divine commission, cf. Is. 41.8; 44.21.
mnēsthēnai eleous ‘to remember his mercy.’ With a view to the Hebraistic background of the style and idiom of the hymn the infinitive is best understood as the equivalent of a Hebrew infinitive with the preposition le which sometimes denotes some act or happening parallel with, or motivating the act or event expressed by the preceding verb, cf. Klostermann; hence e.g., ‘he has helped…; he has remembered his mercy.’
mimnēskomai (always in the aorist tense and usually with genitive) ‘to remember,’ ‘to care for’; when said of God it often implies that He performed some act of redemption as a consequence of His remembering.
(V. 55) kathōs elalēsen pros tous pateras hēmōn ‘as he has spoken to our forefathers’; kathōs refers back either to antelabeto or to mnēsthēnai or perhaps to the whole preceding verse, preferably the second.
tō Abraam kai tō spermati autou ‘to Abraham and his offspring.’
The datives tō Abraam etc. are interpreted either as a freely construed apposition to tous pateras hēmōn (laleō is followed either by pros with accusative or by a dative, cf. v. 22), or as going with mnēsthēnai in the preceding verse and indicating the person who benefits by God’s remembering of His mercy, preferably the former, since the forefathers are virtually identical with Abraham, the first to receive the promise, and his offspring, to whom the promise was subsequently renewed.
sperma (also 20.28) ‘seed,’ here in the figurative sense of ‘descendants’ or ‘offspring’ of a male ancestor.
eis ton aiōna ‘unto eternity,’ cf. on v. 33; the phrase is to be connected with mnēsthēnai.
Translation:
Has helped has been rendered here by, ‘takes … to his side’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘has taken the hand of’ (Kannada), an idiomatic expression lit. meaning ‘runs for their sake’ (Navajo).
His servant Israel, or, in order that this be not taken as a reference to the patriarch Israel/Jacob: ‘Israel, his servants,’ ‘the people Israel, (that is) his servant (or, that serves him),’ ‘the Israelites, his … servants (or, who serve him).’ That the reference is to the speaker’s own people has to be made explicit in some languages, e.g. in Huixtec; this may lead to such renderings as ‘we the people of Israel, his servants,’ ‘we his servants, who are descendants of Israel.’ Other occurrences of (the people) Israel: 1.68, 80; 2.25, 32, 34; 4.25, 27; 7.9; 22.30; 24.21. For servant see 12.37, and for the religious connotation it has here on “handmaid” in 1.38.
In remembrance of his mercy, or shifting to verbs, ‘and (or, because) he remembers to have-mercy/be-merciful.’ With the latter verb an indication of the beneficiary may be obligatory. In that case the translator who follows the interpretation preferred in Exegesis can best transfer ‘our (fore)fathers’ to this clause, replacing it by a pronominal reference in the next. — The verb ‘to remember’ in the sense of ‘to keep in mind for care and attention’ is in some cases more idiomatically, or forcefully, rendered by ‘not to forget’ (New English Bible, Tboli). Elsewhere (e.g. in Miskito, Kare, Mossi ) it can be expressed by a phrase combining ‘to keep,’ ‘to take,’ ‘to bear’ with ‘in the heart/chest/stomach.’
(V. 55) The interpretation given in Exegesis implies taking this verse as one clause, in which 55b is appositional to ‘fathers’; this relationship is sometimes better overtly marked, e.g. ‘that is (or, to wit) to Abraham….’
As he spoke to…, or, ‘in accordance with what he promised (to do) to…’; or changing the syntactic structure, ‘firm in his promise to…’ (cf. New English Bible); or again, starting a new sentence, ‘So doing he performs/fulfils what he had spoken to…,’ ‘Thus he keeps his promise to…’ (cf. Good News Translation). It may be obligatory (e.g. because the linguistic and historical order should parallel each other), or stylistically preferable, to place v. 55 before v. 54.
For fathers, i.e. ‘ancestors’ (also in 1.72; 6.23, 26; 11.47f) see the singular in v. 32. Navajo and Apache can use ‘fathers’ with an enclitic that expresses the meaning ‘former/who-used-to-be.’ Elsewhere the forefathers are collectively referred to as, ‘grand- and greatgrandparents’ (Bahasa Indonesia), ‘people of former days’ (East and Toraja-Sa’dan), ‘elevated-ones’ (Balinese; for those in a very remote past: ‘origin/beginning’), ‘root’ (Barrow Eskimo), ‘elders of old’ (Kituba), ‘those from whom we descend’ (Tboli).
Abraham. In predominantly Muslim countries the Arabic form of the name, Ibrahim, has often been adopted. It should be remembered, however, that the Koran does not only change Abraham’s name but also his character: he is the prototype of the true Muslim, a prophet whose teaching was a refutation of Jewish belief, who built the sanctuary in, and instituted the pilgrimage to Mecca (Sura 2.124-135, 22.78, etc.). Where a translator is still free to choose, he will do best to take the Hebrew form of the name as basis of transliteration.
His posterity, or, ‘those who will be born from Abr. following each other in line’ (Apache), ‘his children-grandchildren’ (Malay), ‘his descendants.’
Forever can, as a rule, better be placed closer to the clause or phrase it goes with, v. 54b. In the other interpretation of v. 55, which takes 55b with 54b, line 55a acquires the character of a parenthesis. Where parentheses are not normally used, some possible restructurings are, (1) to put 55a at the head or the tail of the sentence; (2) to repeat part of 54b in 55b, cf. .’.. mercy-of-him, as what he promised to our ancestors, that mercy-of-him toward Abr….’ (Toraja-Sa’dan); (3) to reverse the position and role of ‘mercy’ and of line 55a respectively, cf. .’.. remembering his promise to our ancestors: (that he) would have-mercy-on Abr….’ (Balinese, similarly Tboli).
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.
as He promised to our fathers: Mary used the phrase our fathers to refer to all the people of Israel who had lived before Mary and Elizabeth were born. Some versions translate this phrase as “our ancestors.” She also used the word our to refer to the ancestors of all the people of Israel. God had promised to all the people of Israel that he would send a Savior. He did not make this promise only to the ancestors of Mary and Elizabeth. So it may be necessary to make this explicit. For example:
just as he said to the ancestors ⌊of our people⌋
1:55b
to Abraham and his descendants forever: There are two interpretations of the way this clause relates to the context:
(1) Abraham and his descendants are the ones who received God’s mercy that is mentioned in 1:54b. For example:
He has remembered to show mercy to Abraham and to all his descendants forever! (Good News Translation)
(Berean Standard Bible, New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible, Good News Translation, Revised English Bible, and the majority of commentators)
(2) Abraham and his descendants are the ones who received God’s promise that is mentioned in 1:55b. In this interpretation, Abraham and his descendants has the same meaning as “our fathers” in 1:55b. This means that God spoke a promise to our fathers/ancestors who are Abraham and his descendants. For example:
as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his children forever (New Century Version)
(Revised Standard Version, Contemporary English Version, God’s Word, NET Bible, New Living Translation (2004), New American Standard Bible, New Century Version, King James Version, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)
It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1).
to Abraham and his descendants: As mentioned above, the phrase Abraham and his descendants is connected to the word “merciful” in 1:54b. God showed his mercy to Abraham and Abraham’s descendants by sending the Messiah. This phrase is another way to refer to Israel, since Abraham was the ancestor of the Israelites.
General Comment on 1:54–55
In some languages it may be helpful to reorder these verses in order to put God’s promise to their ancestors first (1:55b). Here is one way you could do that:
55bGod promised our ancestors that 54ahe would help his servants the Israelites. ⌊Now he has fulfilled his promise.⌋ 54bHe has remembered to be merciful 55ato Abraham and to all of his descendants.
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