complete verse (Luke 22:21)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 22:21:

  • Noongar: “But see! The one who betrays me sits eating among us!” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “‘But see, the person who will sell me, he is here now, eating with me!” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “But look,’ said Isa, ‘the person who is soon going to betray me is our (incl.) companion sitting here with us at the table.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Understand this,’ said Jesus, ‘that the one who turns me over to my enemies is one of our (incl.) companions sitting here with us.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “‘But I also tell you that the one who will betray me is here eating-with (us).” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “But now, my companion in eating is indeed the one who will lead the ones who want to kill me.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

the last supper (image)

Click here to see the image in higher resolution.

Willy Wiedmann, the artist, commented on this picture: “In spite of some difficulty, and unlike Leonardo da Vinci [see here ] I did not set my last supper in a theatrical scene with Jesus in the center behind an elongated table with all the disciples, with two at each end so that that there are 11 seated behind the table. And not like the panel by Juan de Juanes (1623-79) [see here ] in which the six disciples left and right are very dynamic figures. And also not like Martin Schongauer’s Last Supper [see here ] with a slightly shorter table (also incidentally very similar to Juanes in the attitudes of the figures) and two figures seen from the back in the foreground of the panel. Instead I have given the Master the middle place to the foreground, with his back to us to finally leave the controversial Jesus-existential questions unanswered. Slightly symbolically it means that he is leaving his world. The iris color is meant to transfer the rainbow to Jesus, that God once linked to Noah (my kingdom is not of this world). I attempted to present answers that correspond to the characters of each individual.”

Image and text taken from the Wiedmann Bible. For more information about the images and ways to adopt them, see here .

For other images of Willy Wiedmann paintings in TIPs, see here.

 

Painting by Wang Suda 王肅達 (1910-1963),
Copyright by the Catholic University Peking, China.

Text under painting translated from Literary Chinese into English:

Beginning of the Holy Communion
You have this as food and this is my body.

Image taken from Chinese Christian Posters . For more information on the “Ars Sacra Pekinensis” school of art, see this article , for other artworks of that school in TIPs, see here.

the last supper (icon)

Following is a contemporary Ukrainian Orthodox icon of the last supper by Ulyana Tomkevych.

 

Orthodox Icons are not drawings or creations of imagination. They are in fact writings of things not of this world. Icons can represent our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints. They can also represent the Holy Trinity, Angels, the Heavenly hosts, and even events. Orthodox icons, unlike Western pictures, change the perspective and form of the image so that it is not naturalistic. This is done so that we can look beyond appearances of the world, and instead look to the spiritual truth of the holy person or event. (Source )

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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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 choice of a first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on Luke 22:21

Exegesis:

plēn idou ‘yet see.’ For plēn cf. on 6.24; for idou emphatic introduction of what follows cf. on 1.20.

hē cheir tou paradidontos me met’ emou ‘the hand of him who hands me over is with me,’ i.e. his hand receives bread and wine from my hand. The phrase denotes intimate fellowship. For paradidōmi cf. on 9.44.

Translation:

The hand of him who … is with me on the table is stylistically incongruous in that it first mentions the part of the whole (“hand of him” implying a reference to the person), next the whole itself, i.e. the person referred to by “me”. It may be better idiom to mention the part twice, “the hand of the man who … is on the table with mine” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation, and cf. New English Bible), or, .’.. is beside my hand on the table,’ or to mention the whole twice, “the one who … is here at the table with me” (Good News Translation), ‘the one who … is here eating with me’ (Navajo, similarly Tzeltal). A combination of the two solutions may also be possible, cf. ‘the one by whose hand I will be delivered up is with me at the table’ (Willibrord).

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 22:21

Paragraph 22:21–23

22:21a–b

Look!: In the Greek, 22:21a begins with a conjunction that is often translated as “only,” “except,” or “nevertheless.” The New International Version translates this word as “But,” but the Berean Standard Bible omits this conjunction. It here expresses a strong contrast with 22:19–20. In those verses Jesus said that he would die to redeem them. In this verse he said that one of them will betray him. In the Greek text the conjunction is followed by a word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Look!. In this context it emphasizes that the next statement is shocking.

Languages have different ways to emphasize a shocking contrast like this. Some ways to introduce the contrast in English are:

But listen!
-or-
Even now (Revised English Bible)
-or-
But look (New Jerusalem Bible)

In some languages it may be helpful to begin a new quotation here. For example:

Then Jesus said, “But see/know this:…”

Translate the emphasis in this verse in a natural way in your language. Some versions change the word order. See the following note for examples.

The hand of My betrayer is with Mine on the table: In this statement Jesus told his apostles that one of them will betray him. His betrayer was at that moment eating with him at the same table. In Jewish culture when people ate together, they implied that they were loyal to each other. It was terrible for a disciple to eat the Passover meal with his master and then to betray him.

Translate this statement in an emphatic way in your language to help people understand that the betrayer was doing an evil thing. Some other ways to translate it in English are:

one of you will turn against me, and his hand is with mine on the table (New Century Version)
-or-
here with me on the table is the hand of the man who is betraying me (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
here at this table, sitting among us as a friend, is the man who will betray me (New Living Translation (2004))

The hand…is with Mine on the table: Here Jesus said that Judas’ hand was on the same table as his own hand. That is a figurative way to say that he and Judas were eating a meal together.

In some languages it may be more natural to translate the meaning directly. For example:

The very person…is ⌊eating⌋ with me at this table.
-or-
The one…is here at the table with me! (Contemporary English Version)

My betrayer: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as My betrayer is more literally “the one betraying me.” The betrayer would deliver Jesus into the power of his enemies.

Other ways to translate this are:

my betrayer (Revised English Bible)
-or-
the one who turns me over to my enemies

The word “betray” occurred in 22:4, where Judas agreed to help the Jewish leaders arrest Jesus. You should translate in a similar way here. See the note on 22:4c for more information.

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