καὶ στραφεὶς πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα τῷ Σίμωνι ἔφη, Βλέπεις ταύτην τὴν γυναῖκα; εἰσῆλθόν σου εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν, ὕδωρ μοι ἐπὶ πόδας οὐκ ἔδωκας· αὕτη δὲ τοῖς δάκρυσιν ἔβρεξέν μου τοὺς πόδας καὶ ταῖς θριξὶν αὐτῆς ἐξέμαξεν.
44Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.
The Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew that is translated as “hair” in English is translated in Tzeltal as stsotsil sjol (Tzeltal de Oxchuc y Tenejapa) / stsotsel sjol (Tzeltal Bachajón): “blanket for the head.” (Source: Slocum / Watkins 1988, p. 35)
See also hair (body hair) and hairy (like Esau).
“Usually, Thai men spend their free time with other men. Women only enter to serve them food, but here a woman has entered into the male social space in a counter-cultural way Not only is she female, she is a lowly prostitute. Although a Thai woman may sometimes wash her husband’s feet, she will never use her hair to dry them The men observing her are shocked at it all.”
Drawing by Sawai Chinnawong who employs northern and central Thailand’s popular distinctive artistic style originally used to depict Buddhist moral principles and other religious themes; explanation by Paul DeNeui. From That Man Who Came to Save Us by Sawai Chinnawong and Paul H. DeNeui, William Carey Library, 2010.
For more images by Sawai Chinnawong in TIPs see here.
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 7:44:
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”.
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 are (され) 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, iw-are-ru (言われる) or “say” is used.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Exegesis:
kai strapheis pros tēn gunaika ‘and turning to the woman.’ kai connects the parable of vv. 42f and its application. For strapheis cf. on v. 9, but here Jesus does not address the person to whom he turns, but continues to speak to Simon.
blepeis tautēn tēn gunaika ‘do you see this woman?,’ implying that the parable applies to her and to Simon.
eisēlthon sou eis tēn oikian ‘I came into your house,’ i.e. I came as your guest. The clause introduces a series of contrasts between Simon and the woman in their behaviour concerning Jesus.
hudōr moi epi podas ouk edōkas ‘water for my feet you did not give me.’ For the custom of foot washing cf. IDB II, 308. The clause is an asyndeton, just as the two subsequent clauses (vv. 45f) which criticize Simon’s attitude towards Jesus. This lends them a note of sternness.
hautē de ‘but she,’ emphatic, repeated at the beginning of each of the final clauses of vv. 44-46. This serves to bring out the contrast with Simon.
mou tous podas ‘my feet.’ The place of mou before podas is not uncommon.
Translation:
Turning toward the woman, or, describing the situation more exactly, “turning round to the woman, while still addressing Simon” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation).
Do you see this woman, or, ‘do you see what this woman is doing to me’ (Tzeltal), ‘you see that woman, don’t you’ (Marathi, cf. Batak Toba); Shona 1966 shifts to an imperative.
For most details of vv. 44b-46 cf. on v. 38.
You gave me no water, or, where the difference between the initiator and agent is strictly to be observed, ‘you did not order (people/your servants) to give me water’; the implied censure may be made explicit, e.g. ‘you did not so much as give…’ (cf. Willibrord).
Water for my feet, or, ‘water to wash (my) feet’ (e.g. in Tboli, Sranan Tongo).
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.
Paragraph 7:44–47
In this paragraph Jesus compared debts to sins. He also implied that the woman was like the man in the story who owed much money. Jesus was like the lender. The lender forgave the man his debt, and Jesus forgave the woman’s sins. The woman loved Jesus very much because he had forgiven her for many sins. Simon was like the man who borrowed only a little money. He did not love Jesus as much, because he thought that he did not need much forgiveness from Jesus.
7:44a
And turning toward the woman, He said to Simon: Jesus turned to look at the woman who had come and anointed him. He was looking at the woman while he spoke to Simon about her.
Do you see this woman?: This is a rhetorical question. Jesus did not expect an answer. He was directing Simon’s attention toward the woman and asking him to consider her actions. So there are two ways to translate this:
• As a question. For example:
Have you noticed this woman? (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
Do you see what this woman has done?
• As a polite command. For example:
Think about what this woman has just done.
-or-
Look at this woman kneeling here. (New Living Translation (2004))
7:44b
In 7:44a Jesus directed Simon’s attention toward the woman, and he seemed ready to speak to Simon about her. However, here in 7:44b Jesus first spoke about how Simon had treated him. If this is confusing in your language, consider whether you may need more transition. For example:
44aConsider this woman 44b⌊and think about yourself⌋
-or-
44aDo you see this woman? 44b⌊In contrast to her⌋
When I entered your house: The phrase When I entered your house implies that Jesus came as a guest to the Pharisee’s house. In Jewish culture it was important for a host to be very polite to a guest. In some languages there may be an idiom that fits here. For example:
I came under your roof as your guest.
In the Greek text, the word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as your is emphatic. If you have a way to emphasize this word in your language, consider doing that here. Some examples from English are:
It is your house that I came into.
-or-
You ⌊are the one⌋ who invited me to your home.
-or-
As for you, you are my host, and I am here in your home.
7:44c
you did not give Me water for My feet: It was a common Jewish custom to give a guest a bowl or basin of water so that he could wash the dust off his feet. In the homes of rich people, the servants would wash the feet of the guests, especially the guest whom they were honoring. However, Simon did not give Jesus water to wash his feet, and he did not provide a servant to wash them.
If it is not a custom in your culture to provide water to wash a guest’s feet, you may want to explain this custom in a footnote. For example:
In Jewish culture, it was common to provide water for the guests to wash their feet. This was especially important if the guests had been walking on dusty roads.
7:44d
but she wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair: In contrast to Simon, the woman acted more humbly than a servant. A servant would have washed Jesus’ feet with water and dried them with a towel. The woman used her tears to wash his feet, and she used her hair to dry them.
General Comment on 7:44b–d
When In the Greek text and in most English versions, no conjunctions are used to connect 7:44b and 7:44c. Consider how to connect them in your language. The Berean Standard Bible says When. Some further examples in English are:
When I came into your house, you gave me no water… (New Century Version)
-or-
I came into your home, and you gave me no water… (Good News Translation)
-or-
I came into your house, but you did not give me any water for my feet. Yet/however, she wet my feet…
© 2009, 2010, 2013 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.
No comments yet.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.