13But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.”
During the translation of one of the miracles of feeding or crowds with fish and bread into Yami, Graham Ogden tells this story:
“A small population on tiny Orchid Island, off the S-E coast of Taiwan, depended to a large extent on fishing as a source of food. When translating the story of the Five Loaves and Two Fish the translator asked a question that took me by surprise. He asked what kind of fish they were. I said they were just fish! But he said, I have to know what kind of fish they were because we have no word ‘fish.’ How come? I asked. He said we have no general word, because every fish has a name. So I suggested he choose a common type. He then said, But was it a fish that only men can eat or only women? Do you mean that there are cultural restrictions on who can eat which kind of fish? Yes, he said. Is there not one kind of fish that everyone can eat, given the circumstances? Oh yes, he said, there is one kind. Then that’s the name to use, I said. He was satisfied with that answer.”
In Wantoat, fish were unknown so there the translation is “eel” (source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation, March 1965, p. 2-20).
Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
Here, Jesus is addressing his disciples, individuals and/or crowds with the formal pronoun, showing respect.
In Nepali translations, Jesus addresses his disciples and other people with the medium honorific pronoun timīlē (तिमीले) or timīlēharū (तिमीलेहरू). His disciples respond with a high honorific pronoun. (Source: Chitra Chhetri in The Bible Translator 2009, p. 73ff. )
In most Dutch translations, Jesus addresses his disciples and common people with the informal pronoun, whereas they address him with the formal form.
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 9:13:
Noongar: “But Jesus said to them, ‘You, yourselves give them something to eat.’ They said, ‘We only hold five loaves of bread and two fish. You want us to go and buy meat and bread to give to all these people, do you?'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “Yesus said: ‘You feed them.’ His disciples said: ‘How [can] we (excl.) [do that]!? We (excl.) have only just five pieces of bread and two fish. Must we (excl.) go buy food to feed those many people there?'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “But he said to them, ‘You are the ones to feed them.’ They said, ‘We (excl.) only have five units (a classifier)/pieces of bread and two fishes, – only if we (excl.) will go and buy food for these crowds of people.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “But Jesus answered and said, ‘You be the ones to give them something to eat.’ And those disciples of his answered, ‘We only have five pieces of bread and two very small fish. Perhaps you desire that we go and buy food to feed these many people.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “But Jesus said to them, ‘Instead you be the ones (lit. Even-if you are the ones) to feed them.’ Then they said, ‘Five breads and two dried-fish is all there is. Are we to go buy food for all of these?'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “But Jesus replied to them, ‘You be the ones to give them something to eat.’ The disciples answered, saying, ‘Lord, well how can that be since there’s really nothing here except five units of little-bread and two units of little-fish? On the contrary, wouldn’t we (excl.) have to go and buy what would be fed to all this crowd of people?'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
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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 formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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.
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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 third person singular and plural pronoun (“he,” “she,” “it” and their various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. While it’s not uncommon to avoid pronouns altogether in Japanese, there are is a range of third person pronouns that can be used. In these verses a number of them are used that pay particularly much respect to the referred person (or, in fact, God, as in Exodus 15:2), including kono kata (この方), sono kata (その方), and ano kata (あの方), meaning “this person,” “that person,” and “that person over there.”
dote autois humeis phagein ‘you give them (something) to eat,’ cf. on 8.55. humeis is emphatic: you give them to eat instead of letting them take care of themselves.
ouk eisin hēmin pleion ē artoi pente kai ichthues duo ‘we have no more than, or, only, five loaves and two fish.’
ei mēti poreuthentes hēmeis agorasōmen eis panta ton laon touton brōmata ‘unless we ourselves go and buy food for all this crowd.’ Between this clause and the preceding one the train of thought is like this: so we are unable to feed them, unless … hēmeis is emphatic and takes up the emphatic humeis spoken by Jesus.
agorazō ‘to buy,’ ‘to purchase,’ in Luke only in a literal sense.
Translation:
You give them something to eat, or, “give them … to eat yourselves” (New English Bible), ‘(it is) you that should give…’ (Balinese).
We have. The pronoun is best taken to be exclusive (as e.g. in Huautla Mazatec, and most Indonesian versions), unless this would suggest an intention to exclude Jesus from the food.
Loaves, see on 4.3; Tboli uses here, ‘five wrappings of cooked rice,’ the normal provisions on a journey.
Fish, cf. on 5.6; here the reference is to ‘cured (e.g. dried, or, salted) fish.’
Unless we are to go …, or, ‘except only that (or, only if) we go’ (Kele, Ekari), may have to be adjusted to bring out the right meaning, e.g. .’.. unless you want us (emphatic) to go…’ (Shona 1966), ‘or maybe we should go’ (East Nyanja), ‘it would be necessary for us to go’ (Tzeltal); or as a question, ‘or shall we go?’ (Zarma), ‘you don’t want us to go…, don’t you?’ (cf. Bahasa Indonesia RC); or again, filling out the elliptical utterance, ‘only if we go…, there would be sufficient,’ ‘we cannot give them enough, except if we go….’ Marathi reaches the same end by transposing this and the preceding clause, cf. ‘if we don’t buy and bring bread, then we have nothing besides five loaves and two fish.’ Here we is best taken exclusive, otherwise the disciples would be implying that Jesus was to join them on their errand.
Food, see on 3.11.
All these people, i.e. “this whole crowd” (Good News Translation), and cf. on 3.21.
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.
But Jesus told them: The words But Jesus told them introduce the response that Jesus made to what the disciples suggested. He did not say what the disciples expected him to say. In Greek the verse begins with the common conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates here as “But.” Some other English versions do not translate this conjunction. Introduce Jesus’ response in a natural way in your language.
You give them something to eat: The word You is emphasized here. Jesus was saying that the people should not have to find their own food. Instead, the disciples should give them food. Some ways to translate Jesus’ words here are:
You yourselves give them something to eat. (Good News Translation) -or-
It is you ⌊who must⌋ feed them!
Paragraph 9:13b–14
9:13b
We have only five loaves of bread and two fish: In this clause the disciples implied that they did not have enough food to give the people something to eat. They implied that for this reason, they could not do what Jesus had told them. In some languages it may be necessary to make this implied information explicit in some way. For example:
⌊How can we do that?⌋ We have only…
loaves of bread: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as loaves of bread is literally “loaves.” These were small, round loaves of flat bread, probably made from barley. The parallel passage in John 6:9 makes this clear. If people do not know a word for bread, you may use a general word such as “food” here. You should not substitute a different kind of food, because these verses tell about an event that actually happened.
Languages have different ways to describe portions of bread or food. Some ways to do that are:
• Use a plural form of the word to refer to a certain number of portions. For example:
five breads
• Use a general word that refers to a unit or portion. For example:
five units/portions of bread
In areas where people do not eat bread as their main food, it may be helpful to include a footnote. For example:
Bread was one of the main foods that the Jews ate. The loaves of bread in this verse were round, thick, and flat in shape. One person would probably eat two of them for one meal.
fish: This fish was ready to eat, so it had already been cooked or dried or salted. It was probably a small kind of fresh-water fish from the nearby lake, the Lake of Galilee. Use a natural word in your language for this context.
they answered: The disciples answered by implying that they could not do what Jesus told them to do. Introduce the disciples’ response in a natural way in your language. In some languages it may be helpful to use a different verb. For example:
⌊But⌋ they said/objected
9:13c
unless we go and buy food for all these people: In this clause the disciples were suggesting that the only way to get enough food for everyone was to go and buy it. However, they did not think that this was what Jesus wanted them to do. They did not think it was possible to buy enough food for the crowd, because they did not have enough money (see John 6:7). Another way to translate this is:
…or do you intend us to go and buy food for all these people? (Revised English Bible)
In some languages it may be more natural to start a new sentence with this clause. For example:
Do you want us to go and buy food for this whole crowd? (Good News Translation) -or-
If we are going to feed all these people, we will have to go and buy food. (Contemporary English Version)
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