Lord

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The Hebrew adonai in the Old Testament typically refers to God. The shorter adon (and in two cases in the book of Daniel the Aramaic mare [מָרֵא]) is also used to refer to God but more often for concepts like “master,” “owner,” etc. In English Bible translations all of those are translated with “Lord” if they refer to God.

In English Old Testament translations, as in Old Testament translations in many other languages, the use of Lord (or an equivalent term in other languages) is not to be confused with Lord (or the equivalent term with a different typographical display for other languages). While the former translates adonai, adon and mare, the latter is a translation for the tetragrammaton (YHWH) or the Name of God. See tetragrammaton (YHWH) and the article by Andy Warren-Rothlin in Noss / Houser, p. 618ff. for more information.

In the New Testament, the Greek term kurios has at least four different kinds of use:

  • referring to “God,” especially in Old Testament quotations,
  • meaning “master” or “owner,” especially in parables, etc.,
  • as a form of address (see for instance John 4:11: “Sir, you have no bucket”),
  • or, most often, referring to Jesus

In the first and fourth case, it is also translated as “Lord” in English.

Most languages naturally don’t have one word that covers all these meanings. According to Bratcher / Nida, “the alternatives are usually (1) a term which is an honorific title of respect for a high-ranking person and (2) a word meaning ‘boss’, ‘master’, or ‘chief.’ (…) and on the whole it has generally seemed better to employ a word of the second category, in order to emphasize the immediate personal relationship, and then by context to build into the word the prestigeful character, since its very association with Jesus Christ will tend to accomplish this purpose.”

When looking at the following list of back-translations of the terms that translators in the different languages have used for both kurios and adonai to refer to God and Jesus respectively, it might be helpful for English readers to recall the etymology of the English “Lord.” While this term might have gained an exalted meaning in the understanding of many, it actually comes from hlaford or “loaf-ward,” referring to the lord of the castle who was the keeper of the bread (source: Rosin 1956, p. 121).

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Following are some of the solutions that don’t rely on a different typographical display (see above):

  • Navajo (Dinė): “the one who has charge”
  • Mossi: “the one who has the head” (the leader)
  • Uduk: “chief”
  • Guerrero Amuzgo: “the one who commands”
  • Kpelle: “person-owner” (a term which may be applied to a chief)
  • Central Pame: “the one who owns us” (or “commands us”)
  • Piro: “the big one” (used commonly of one in authority)
  • San Blas Kuna: “the great one over all” (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Guhu-Samane: Soopara (“our Supervisor”) (source: Ellis Deibler in Notes on Translation July, 1967, p. 5ff.)
  • Balinese: “Venerated-one” (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • Yanesha’: “the one who carries us” (source: Nida 1952, p. 159)
  • Northern Emberá: Dadjirã Boro (“our Head”)
  • Rarotongan: Atu (“master or owner of a property”)
  • Gilbertese: Uea (“a person of high status invested with authority to rule the people”)
  • Rotuman: Gagaja (“village chief”)
  • Samoan: Ali’i (“an important word in the native culture, it derives from the Samoan understanding of lordship based on the local traditions”)
  • Tahitian: Fatu (“owner,” “master”)
  • Tuvalu: Te Aliki (“chief”)
  • Fijian: Liuliu (“leader”) (source for this and six above: Joseph Hong in The Bible Translator 1994, p. 329ff. )
  • Bacama: Həmə miye: “owner of people” (source: David Frank in this blog post )
  • Hopi: “Controller” (source: Walls 2000, p. 139)
  • Iyansi: Mwol. Mwol is traditionally used for the “chief of a group of communities and villages” with legal, temporal, and spiritual authority (versus the “mfum [the term used in other Bantu languages] which is used for the chief of one community of people in one village”). Mwol is also used for twins who are “treated as special children, highly honored, and taken care of like kings and queens.” (Source: Kividi Kikama in Greed / Kruger, p. 396ff.)
  • Ghomala’: Cyəpɔ (“he who is above everyone,” consisting of the verb cyə — to surpass or go beyond — and pɔ — referring to people. No human can claim this attribute, no matter what his or her social status or prestige.” (Source: Michel Kenmogne in Theologizing in Context: An Example from the Study of a Ghomala’ Christian Hymn )
  • Binumarien: Karaambaia: “fight-leader” (Source: Oates 1995, p. 255)
  • Warlpiri: Warlaljamarri (owner or possessor of something — for more information tap or click here)

    We have come to rely on another term which emphasizes God’s essential nature as YHWH, namely jukurrarnu (see tetragrammaton (YHWH)). This word is built on the same root jukurr– as is jukurrpa, ‘dreaming.’ Its basic meaning is ‘timelessness’ and it is used to describe physical features of the land which are viewed as always being there. Some speakers view jukurrarnu in terms of ‘history.’ In all Genesis references to YHWH we have used Kaatu Jukurrarnu. In all Mark passages where kurios refers to God and not specifically to Christ we have also used Kaatu Jukurrarnu.

    New Testament references to Christ as kurios are handled differently. At one stage we experimented with the term Watirirririrri which refers to a ceremonial boss of highest rank who has the authority to instigate ceremonies. While adequately conveying the sense of Christ’s authority, there remained potential negative connotations relating to Warlpiri ceremonial life of which we might be unaware.

    Here it is that the Holy Spirit led us to make a chance discovery. Transcribing the personal testimony of the local Warlpiri pastor, I noticed that he described how ‘my Warlaljamarri called and embraced me (to the faith)’. Warlaljamarri is based on the root warlalja which means variously ‘family, possessions, belongingness’. A warlaljamarri is the ‘owner’ or ‘possessor’ of something. While previously being aware of the ‘ownership’ aspect of warlaljamarri, this was the first time I had heard it applied spontaneously and naturally in a fashion which did justice to the entire concept of ‘Lordship’. Thus references to Christ as kurios are now being handled by Warlaljamarri.” (Source: Stephen Swartz, The Bible Translator 1985, p. 415ff. )

  • Mairasi: Onggoao Nem (“Throated One” — “Leader,” “Elder”) or Enggavot Nan (“Above-One”) (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Obolo: Okaan̄-ene (“Owner of person(s)”) (source: Enene Enene)
  • Angami Naga: Niepu (“master,” “owner”)
  • Lotha Naga: Opvui (“owner of house / field / cattle”) — since both “Lord” and YHWH are translated as Opvui there is an understanding that “Opvui Jesus is the same as the Opvui of the Old Testament”
  • Ao Naga: Kibuba (“human master,” “teacher,” “owner of property,” etc.) (source for this and two above: Nitoy Achumi in The Bible Translator 1992 p. 438ff. )
  • Seediq: Tholang, loan word from Min Nan Chinese (the majority language in Taiwan) thâu-lâng (頭儂): “Master” (source: Covell 1998, p. 248)
  • Thai: phra’ phu pen cao (พระผู้เป็นเจ้า) (divine person who is lord) or ong(kh) cao nay (องค์เจ้านาย) (<divine classifier>-lord-boss) (source: Stephen Pattemore)
  • Arabic often uses different terms for adonai or kurios referring to God (al-rabb الرب) and kurios referring to Jesus (al-sayyid الـسـيـد). Al-rabb is also the term traditionally used in Arabic Christian-idiom translations for YHWH, and al-sayyid is an honorary term, similar to English “lord” or “sir” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin).
  • Tamil also uses different terms for adonai/kurios when referring to God and kurios when referring to Jesus. The former is Karttar கர்த்தர், a Sanskrit-derived term with the original meaning of “creator,” and the latter in Āṇṭavar ஆண்டவர், a Tamil term originally meaning “govern” or “reign” (source: Natarajan Subramani).
  • Burunge: Looimoo: “owner who owns everything” (in the Burunge Bible translation, this term is only used as a reference to Jesus and was originally used to refer to the traditional highest deity — source: Michael Endl in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 48)
  • Yagaria: Souve, originally “war lord” (source: Renck, p. 94)
  • Aguacateco: Ajcaw ske’j: “the one to whom we belong and who is above us” (source: Rita Peterson in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 49)
  • Konkomba: Tidindaan: “He who is the owner of the land and reigns over the people” (source: Lidorio 2007, p. 66)
  • Chichewa: Ambuye Ambuye comes from the singular form Mbuye which is used to refer to: (1) someone who is a guardian or protector of someone or group of people — a grandparent who has founded a community or village; (2) someone who is a boss or master over a group of people or servants and has absolute control over them; (3) owner of something, be it a property, animals and people who are bound under his/her rule — for people this was mostly commonly used in the context of slaves and their owner. In short, Mbuye is someone who has some authorities over those who call him/her their “Mbuye.” Now, when the form Ambuye is used it will either be for honorific when used for singular or plural when referring to more than one person. When this term is used in reference to God, it is for respect to God as he is acknowledged as a guardian, protector, and ruler of everything. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation).
  • Hdi uses rveri (“lion”) as a title of respect and as such it regularly translates adon in the Old Testament. As an address, it’s most often with a possessive pronoun as in rvera ɗa (“my lion” = “my lord” or “sir”). So, for example, Genesis 15:2 (“O Lord God”) is Rvera ɗa Yawe (“My lion Yahweh”) or Ruth to Boaz in Ruth 2:13: “May I find your grace [lit. good-stomach] my lion.” This ties in nicely with the imagery of the Lord roaring like a lion (Hosea 11:10; Amos 3:8; Joel 3:16). Better still, this makes passages like Revelation 5:5 even richer when we read about rveri ma taba məndəra la Yuda, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”. In Revelation 19:16, Jesus is rveri ta ghəŋa rveriha “the lion above lions” (“lord of lords”). (Source: Drew Maust)

Law (2013, p. 97) writes about how the Ancient Greek Septuagint‘s translation of the Hebrew adonai was used by the New Testament writers as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments: “Another case is the use of kurios referring to Jesus. For Yahweh (in English Bibles: ‘the Lord‘), the Septuagint uses kurios. Although the term kurios usually has to do with one’s authority over others, when the New Testament authors use this word from the Septuagint to refer to Jesus, they are making an extraordinary claim: Jesus of Nazareth is to be identified with Yahweh.”

See also Father / Lord.

Translation commentary on Mark 1:19

Text:

After probas ‘going on’ Textus Receptus adds ekeithen ‘thence,’ which is rejected by all modern editions of the Greek text.

Exegesis:

probainō (only here in Mark) ‘advance,’ ‘go forward.’

oligon ‘a little’ is the accusative of the neuter adjective oligos ‘little,’ used adverbially to modify the verb probainō ‘go forward.’

ton adelphon autou ‘his brother’ refers, of course, to James, not to Zebedee.

kai autous … katartizontas ‘and they (were) mending’: this participial clause is a rather clumsy Greek construction reflecting, as Black points out, its Semitic character. It is best translated by “while (or, when) they were mending…” (cf. also Howard II, 423). The pronoun autous ‘they’ and the participle katartizontas ‘mending’ are in the accusative case because they stand in apposition to Iakōbon kai Iōannēn ‘James and John,’ the direct objects of the verb eiden ‘he saw.’ To translate literally ‘they (or, who) also were … mending’ is inaccurate (The Modern Speech New Testament, Knox, American Standard Version). The best translation will make this clause subordinate to the main one, either in a temporal sense ‘while they were mending’ or as a relative clause ‘who were mending’ (Revised Standard Version).

en tō ploiō ‘in the boat.’ Grant observes that the definite article need not always be translated (cf. Le Nouveau Testament. Version Synodale dans une barque), and Lagrange observes that both in Hebrew and in classical Greek the definite article is used to indicate an object naturally to be found in the situation described. On the other hand, ‘their boat’ (Revised Standard Version, Moffatt, The Modern Speech New Testament, Berkeley) is a possible translation (cf. Turner, and see v. 18 ta diktua ‘their nets’).

katartizontas ta diktua ‘mending the nets.’

katartizō (only here in Mark) “to render artios, i.e. ‘fit,’ ‘complete’ ” (Abbot-Smith). The sense is not exclusively that of repairing; the word means ‘to adjust,’ ‘to put right.’ It may mean here preparing the nets for the next fishing. Moulton & Milligan also give evidence for this meaning of the word. Arndt & Gingrich: “put in order, restore; put into proper condition.”

Translation:

The expression James the son of Zebedee and John his brother can only rarely be translated literally into another language. In general it must be reorganized to fit the syntactic and lexical requirements of the receptor language, e.g. ‘James and John, the sons of Zebedee’ (with the relationship of ‘brother’ left implicit); ‘James and his younger brother John, the sons of Zebedee’ (Highland Oaxaca Chontal); ‘James and his brother John; their father was Zebedee’; or ‘James and John, two brothers, sons of Zebedee’ (Mitla Zapotec). The selection of one of these formulae, or some other, will depend entirely upon what type of expression is the closest natural equivalent in the language into which one is translating.

It is not necessary that the nets of verse 19 be the same as those of 16 and 18. The fact that the men were in the boat may suggest that these were long nets let out from boats. The Greek term translated “mending” in the Revised Standard Version is equivalent to English ‘fixing them up.’

While in some parts of the world it may be impossible to find an indigenous term for boat (e.g. along the Sahara the Mossi people have no word for boat, but they call it a ‘water-box’), in others one is faced with the problem of selecting out of a number of different terms the name of a craft which would be approximately the size and shape of the fishing boats used on the Lake of Galilee. There were obviously different-sized boats employed for fishing on the lake, but it is probably safest to estimate that the boats which the disciples used would be capable of holding anywhere from six to a dozen persons. They were not, however, huge ships, for they could be drawn up on the shore by hand and they were of relatively shallow draft (so that Jesus could speak to the people on the shore, while being only a little distance off the land).

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

SIL Translator's Notes on Mark 1:19

1:19a

Going on a little farther: The phrase Going on a little farther connects 1:19a with the preceding verse.

Here is another way to translate this:

Jesus walked on and soon saw (Contemporary English Version)

He: The pronoun He refers to Jesus. The focus is on Jesus, but Simon and Andrew were also still with Jesus. In some languages, it may be necessary to indicate that in some way. For example:

Jesus and his two followers

1:19b

He saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John: In New Testament times Jewish people used the name of their father to identify the family they belonged to. Zebedee was the father of James and John. See “Proper Names in Mark” in the Introduction for information on how to transliterate these names.

See the note in 1:16b for ways to translate the word brother. Since John was mentioned last, he was probably the younger brother.

Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

he saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee (God’s Word)
-or-
Jesus saw two more brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee (New Century Version)

Notice that in the God’s Word, the word “brother” is implied by the fact that both James and John were sons of the same man. If you follow a model like the New Century Version, be sure that “more brothers” does not imply that James and John were also brothers of Simon and Andrew.

1:19c

They were in a boat: The boats used on Lake Galilee were small boats used for fishing and travel across the lake. They could hold from about four to fifteen people. People used sails or oars (long paddles) to cause the boats to move across the water. If you do not have a word for boat in your language, here are some translation options:

• Use a phrase that describes the function of a boat. For example:

a vehicle for crossing water
-or-
something for carrying people on top of water

• Use the word for a specific kind of boat in your culture. For example:

canoe

Consider how your language talks about people in a boat. In some languages it may be more natural to say that they were riding or sitting in a boat.

mending their nets: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as mending means “restoring to a former condition.” This would include cleaning, repairing, and folding the nets. In translating this phrase, you may focus either on “preparing” the nets or on mending the nets. For example:

repairing their nets (New Living Translation)
-or-
getting their nets ready (Good News Bible)
-or-
preparing their nets to [go fishing] (God’s Word)

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