The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “widow” in English is translated in West Kewa as ona wasa or “woman shadow” (source: Karl J. Franklin in Notes on Translation 70/1978, pp. 13ff.) and in Newari as “husband already died ones” or “ones who have no husband” (source: Newari Back Translation).
The etymological meaning of the Hebrewalmanah (אַלְמָנָה) is likely “pain, ache,” the Greekchéra (χήρα) is likely “to leave behind,” “abandon,” and the Englishwidow (as well as related terms in languages such as Dutch, German, Sanskrit, Welsh, or Persian) is “to separate,” “divide” (source: Wiktionary).
Retrotraducciones en español (haga clic o pulse aquí)
Jesús y los Saduceos estaban platicando y un maestro de la ley lo vio (y pensó): ‘huy Jesús explica bien’ y lo acercó y dijo: “Si escoges un mandamiento, ¿cuál es lo más importante?”
Jesús los advertió: “Cuidado de los maestros de la ley, ellos tienen su ropa demasiado larga, les gusta caminar en la plaza y que todas las personas los respetan. Otra cosa: Adentro del templo no se sentan con las demás personas, no, siempre les gusta estar sentado primero enfrente de las demás personas.
Otra cosa es que en los banquetes no se sentan con las demás personas, no, siempre les gusta sentarse primero. Otra cosa es que cuando una viuda es dueña de una casa los maestros de la ley se la quitan.
Los maestros de la ley intencionalmente disimulan con oraciones largas, pero Dios les dará un castigo fuerte a estos.”
Jesus warned them: “Be careful of the teachers of the Law, they have overly long clothes, and they like to walk in the square and have everyone respect them. Another thing: Inside the temple they don’t sit with the other people, no, they always like to be seated first, in front of the other people.
“Another thing is that at banquets they do not sit with the other people, no, they always like to be seated first. Another thing is that when there are widows that own a house, the teachers of the Law take away their houses.
“The teachers of the Law intentionally dissemble with long prayers, but in the future God will send these a strong punishment.”
— Beware of the scribes! They love to dress in beautiful long robes, they love for people around them to notice them, to be respected, to bow to them when they meet. They also love to take the first row when they come to the synagogue, and they also take the most honorable places at feasts. And they also love to enter the houses of poor widows and take away all their property. They love to stand in front of everyone and pray long and volubly, so that everyone around can see how they pray. I tell you, they do all this on purpose. God will then severely punish them!
Original Russian back-translation (click or tap here):
Иисус продолжал учить и еще сказал:
— Бойтесь книжников! Они любят одеваться в красивые длинные одежды, любят, чтобы люди вокруг их замечали, чтобы их почитали, при встрече кланялись им. Любят также, когда приходят в синагоги, занимать первый ряд, а также на пирах занимают самые почетные места. А еще они любят входить в дома бедных вдов и отнимать у них все их имущество. Они любят встать на виду у всех и долго, многословно молиться, чтобы все вокруг видели, как они молятся. Я говорю вам, все это они делают нарочно. Бог потом сурово покарает их!
“beg” or “ask,” (full expression: “ask with one’s heart coming out,” which leaves out selfish praying, for asking with the heart out leaves no place for self to hide) (Tzotzil)
“raise up one’s words to God” (implying an element of worship, as well as communication) (Miskito, Lacandon) (source of this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
“speak to God” (Shilluk) (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)
“talk together with Great Above One (=God)” (Mairasi) (source: Enggavoter, 2004)
“beg” (waan) (Ik). Terrill Schrock (in Wycliffe Bible Translators 2016, p. 93) explains (click or tap here to read more):
What do begging and praying have to do with each other? Do you beg when you pray? Do I?
“The Ik word for ‘visitor’ is waanam, which means ‘begging person.’ Do you beg when you go visiting? The Ik do. Maybe you don’t beg, but maybe when you visit someone, you are looking for something. Maybe it’s just a listening ear.
When the Ik hear that [my wife] Amber and I are planning trip to this or that place for a certain amount of time, the letters and lists start coming. As the days dwindle before our departure, the little stack of guests grows. ‘Please, sir, remember me for the allowing: shoes, jacket (rainproof), watch, box, trousers, pens, and money for the children. Thank you, sir, for your assistance.’
“A few people come by just to greet us or spend bit of time with us. Another precious few will occasionally confide in us about their problems without asking for anything more than a listening ear. I love that.
“The other day I was in our spare bedroom praying my list of requests to God — a nice list covering most areas of my life, certainly all the points of anxiety. Then it hit me: Does God want my list, or does he want my relationship?
“I decided to try something. Instead of reading off my list of requests to God, I just talk to him about my issues without any expectation of how he should respond. I make it more about our relationship than my list, because if our personhood is like God’s personhood, then maybe God prefers our confidence and time to our lists, letters, and enumerations.”
In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning (click or tap here to read more):
For Acts 1:14, 20:36, 21:5: kola ttieru-yawur nehla — “hold the waist and hug the neck.” (“This is the more general term for prayer and often refers to worship in prayer as opposed to petition. The Luang people spend the majority of their prayers worshiping rather than petitioning, which explains why this term often is used generically for prayer.”)
For Acts 28:9: sumbiani — “pray.” (“This term is also used generically for ‘prayer’. When praying is referred to several times in close proximity, it serves as a variation for kola ttieru-yawur nehla, in keeping with Luang discourse style. It is also used when a prayer is made up of many requests.”)
For Acts 8:15, 12:5: polu-waka — “call-ask.” (“This is a term for petition that is used especially when the need is very intense.”)
Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.
Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 12:40:
Uma: “They deceive widows and they take-away their houses. They hide the evil of their deeds by praying long-long. Their punishment will be very heavy.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “But they,’ said Isa, ‘they cause difficulties for the widow women in order to get their houses, and they cause their worship to be long pretending that they are good people. Surely they will receive great/severe judgment in the afterworld.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “The teachers of the law cheat widow women so that they might come to own the houses of those women. Their prayers are very long, but are only a coverup for their wicked deeds. God’s punishment on them later will be very great.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “They moreover deceive widowed women in order to get their possessions and even their houses while-at-the-same-time they make-long their prayers in the sight of the many-people. In-the-future indeed (prophetic formula) their punishment will be heavier.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “And they use up the livelihood of widows through what they cause them to give. And for the reason that they want to cover up their evil ways/nature, they pray long prayers. Really extremely hard/heavy is their punishment.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Ibaloi: “They wickedly take the possessions of widowed women, and when they go to their church they make long prayers, so that they will say that they are good people. Big is the punishment of God on them.” (Source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
hoi katesthontes ‘the ones devouring’: there is lack of syntactical concordance, inasmuch as the participle here is in the nominative case, in apposition to houtoi ‘these’ of the last clause, and not in the genitive, in agreement with tōn grammateōn ‘the scribes’ to which it refers. The difficulty may be resolved by making this a relative clause, ‘who devour’ (Revised Standard Version), or by starting a new sentence, as Translator’s New Testament, ‘They who devour….’ Revised Standard Version, however, makes for greater clarity and intelligibility.
katesthō or katesthiō (cf. 4.4) ‘devour’: here, figuratively, meaning ‘rob,’ ‘exploit,’ ‘consume,’ ‘destroy.’ Arndt & Gingrich suggest ‘appropriate illegally,’ and give examples. Lagrange suggests that they despoiled the widows by their knowledge of the law.
tas oikias tōn chērōn ‘the houses of widows’: a summary way of saying ‘their belongings,’ ‘their fortunes’ (cf. Lagrange les biens).
chēra (12.42, 43) ‘widow.’
kai prophasei makra proseuchomenoi ‘and for a pretense make long prayers.’ The exact force of prophasis (only here in Mark) is not clear: (1) it may be connected with what precedes, meaning ‘and to cover it up make long prayers’ (Goodspeed; cf. also O Novo Testamento de Nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo. Revisdo Autorizada; cf. Gould); (2) it may modify the subject (‘the scribes’) and mean ‘for a pretense’ (Revised Standard Version), ‘for show’ (Berkeley, Translator’s New Testament), ‘for appearance’ sake’; (3) it may modify the object (‘the long prayers’ implied in the clause makra proseuchomenoi ‘praying long’), ‘offer long, unreal prayers’ (Moffatt), ‘make long but insincere prayers’ (Manson). Grammar alone cannot decide the question: it would appear, however, that the context favors the second possibility.
makra is adverbial (neuter accusative plural of the adjective makros ‘long’; cf. the adverb makran 12.34) ‘lengthily,’ ‘extensively.’
proseuchomai (cf. 1.35) ‘pray.’
lēmpsontai perissoteron krima ‘they shall receive greater condemnation’: the meaning is eschatological, ‘they shall receive from God on the day of Judgment a more severe sentence.’
perissoteron (cf. 7.36) ‘greater’: here it is an adjective, modifying krima.
krima (only here in Mark) ‘condemnation,’ ‘judgment,’ ‘sentence.’
Translation:
Devour widows’ houses is a metaphor which is quite meaningless in many languages. In some, however, it would convey an entirely wrong idea. For example, in one language scribes, which was rendered by a transcribed borrowing from a trade language (and hence was not fully understood), was thought to be the name of a special kind of animal which could consume the thatch and cornstalk houses so often used as shelters by the poor widows. When, however, ‘devour widows’ houses’ does not convey the proper meaning, one can shift the metaphor to a nonmetaphor in any one of several ways, e.g. ‘cause houses to come to nothing’ (Piro), ‘take away all the widows have’ (Southern Subanen), ‘eat up what widows have’ (Copainalá Zoque), ‘take away what belongs to poor women and use it up,’ in which ‘poor women’ is the usual term for ‘widow’ (Tzeltal), and ‘eat up the money of the houses of widows’ (Tabasco Chontal).
In line with the second possible interpretation of for a pretense (see comments above), one may translate in a number of different ways, e.g. ‘only with their lips they pray very much’ (San Mateo del Mar Huave), ‘so that they may deceive they pray a long time’ (South Bolivian Quechua), ‘they make long prayers but do not mean them’ (Tzeltal), and ‘try to show they are good by making long prayers’ (Guerrero Amuzgo).
Receive the greater condemnation may be translated in terms of the sentence or judgment passed, e.g. ‘receive a bigger judgment’ (Central Tarahumara), or as in some languages by means of a reference to the punishment which results from the condemnation, e.g. ‘they will have greater pain’ (Copainalá Zoque), and ‘they will pay greater hurt’ (Guerrero Amuzgo).
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 .
There is a contrast in this verse. The scribes cheated widows. Then these same scribes prayed long prayers to impress people. Express this contrast clearly in your language. For example:
They rob widows by taking their houses and then say long prayers to make themselves look good. (God’s Word) -or-
But they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property, and then, to cover up the kind of people they really are, they make long prayers in public. (New Living Translation, 1996 edition)
12:40a
They defraud widows of their houses: The clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as They defraud widows of their houses is literally “they devour widows’ houses.” This is a Greek idiom. The idiom means that the scribes often tried to get as much money as they could from widows. They probably persuaded the widows to give them generous gifts. They used their status as scribes for their own profit, and this resulted in harm for some poor widows.
Here are some other ways to translate this:
They take advantage of widows and rob them of their homes (Good News Bible) -or-
They rob widows by taking their houses. -or-
But they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property. (New Living Translation, 1996 edition)
widows:Women whose husbands have died are called widows.
houses: The word houses is a figure of speech. It includes not only the homes of the widows, but their money and other possessions too.
12:40b
and for a show make lengthy prayers: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as show means “pretense.” The scribes were pretending to be righteous and to love God. They prayed long prayers in public so that people would hear them. The teachers did this in order to impress people so that the people would think that the teachers were righteous.
make lengthy prayers: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as make…prayers is literally “praying.” It refers to speaking to God. The phrase make lengthy prayers indicates that when the teachers prayed in public, they prayed for a long time. In some languages it is necessary to translate prayers as a verb. For example:
pray for a long time
Some languages may use different words to refer to specific kinds of prayer, such as requests, thanks, or praise. Here you should use a word or expression that has a general meaning.
12:40c
These men will receive greater condemnation: The Greek expression that the Berean Standard Bible translates as These men will receive greater condemnation includes an implied comparison. The clause implies that other people will receive less condemnation. In some languages it may be necessary to make the comparison explicit. For example:
They will be punished more severely than other people.
In some languages it may be necessary to indicate who will punish the scribes. If that is true in your language, you should indicate that God will punish them. For example:
God will punish them more severely than he will punish others.
These men: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as These men is literally “these.” It refers to the scribes who cheat widows and make long prayers.
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