the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath

In Russian, the phrase суббота для человека, а не человек для субботы (subbota dlya cheloveka, a ne chelovek dlya subboty) or “the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath” is widely used in many variations as an idiom in every-day life. The wording of the quote originated in the Russian Synodal Bible (publ. 1876). (Source: Reznikov 2020, p. 63f.)

Mark 2:23-28 in Russian Sign Language

Following is the translation of Mark 2:23-28 into Russian Sign Language with a back-translation underneath:


Source: Russian Bible Society / Российское Библейское Общество

It was the Sabbath. Here was a field where wheat was growing. There was a path through the field where people were walking. Jesus and the disciples were walking along the path. The disciples plucked the ears, took the grain out of them, peeled them and ate them. A group of Pharisees saw this, and they were greatly angered.

They said to Jesus:

— Look at this! Today is the Sabbath! And your disciples are picking ears. It is forbidden to do that on the Sabbath. The law forbids it. Look at what your disciples are doing!

Jesus answered them:

— Do you know the story of David? There was a priest named Abiathar. He brought bread to the Temple of God and offered it as a gift to God. Then Abiathar and the other priests were allowed to eat that bread. Ordinary people were not allowed to eat this bread because it was only for the priests. And this is what happened to David. He was traveling with his soldiers and they were very hungry. David entered the Temple where the bread that was meant for God was lying, and he ate that bread. He also gave pieces of this bread to his soldiers because they were all very hungry. Were they allowed to do this?

Today is the Sabbath. God set this day for the people to rest. But you have turned the Sabbath into a set of harsh rules. I am the master and ruler of the Sabbath.

Original Russian back-translation (click or tap here):

Была суббота. Вот поле, на котором росла пшеница. Через это поле шла тропинка, по которой ходили люди. Иисус и ученики шли по этой тропинке. Ученики срывали колосья, доставали из них зерна, очищали их и ели. Группа фарисеев увидела это, и они были сильно возмущены.

Они сказали Иисусу:

— Посмотри на это! Сегодня суббота! А твои ученики собирают колосья. Это запрещено делать в субботу. Закон запрещает. Ты посмотри, что делают твои ученики!

Иисус им ответил:

— Вы знаете историю о Давиде? Был священник по имени Авиафар. Он приносил в Храм Бога хлеб и приносил его в дар Богу. Потом этот хлеб разрешено было есть Авиафару и другим священникам. Обычным людям запрещено было есть такой хлеб, потому что он предназначался только для священников. И вот что случилось с Давидом. Он шел со своими воинами, они были очень голодны. Давид вошел в Храм, где лежал хлеб, предназначенный для Бога, и ел этот хлеб. Также он дал куски этого хлеба своим воинам, потому что все они были очень голодны. Им можно было это делать?

Сегодня суббота. Бог установил этот день, чтобы люди отдохнули. Но вы превратили субботу в набор суровых правил. Я есть хозяин и властелин субботы.

Back-translation by Luka Manevich

<< Mark 2:18-22 in Russian Sign Language
Mark 3:1-6 in Russian Sign Language >>

Mark 2:23-28 in Mexican Sign Language

Following is the translation of Mark 2:23-28 into Mexican Sign Language with back-translations into Spanish and English underneath:


© La Biblia en LSM / La Palabra de Dios

Retrotraducciones en español (haga clic o pulse aquí)

Un sábado, el día de descanso, Jesús y sus discípulos estaban caminando en el campo y los discípulos estaban recogiendo trigo.

Los fariseos lo vieron y dijeron a Jesús: “Ellos están trabajando, tu sabes que es prohibido, según la ley de Dios el sábado es el día de descanso. ¿Cómo es que lo hacen?”

Jesús los paró (diciendo): “Mira, les explico. Hay una ley que dice que los sacerdotes pueden tomar del pan santo y comerlo, pero gente de afuera, gente extraño no puede comer el pan santo, está prohibido.

¿Uds todavía no han leído la historia de David y del sumo sacerdote de antes, Abiatar, uds no la conocen?

David y los soldados tenían hambre y David fue sólo al tabernáculo y tomó el pan santo y lo distribuyó y los soldados lo comieron.

Les pregunto: ¿Dios hizo las personas para la ley, para que el sábado a fuerzas descansaran y la obedecieran? No, al contrario, Dios dio el sábado en su gracia para ayudar a la gente.

Por eso Dios ha entregado al hijo del hombre la autoridad, él puede no hacer caso al sábado como día de descanso si personas necesitan ayuda.”


On a Saturday, the day of rest, Jesus and his disciples were walking in the fields and the disciples were gathering wheat.

The Pharisees saw it and said to Jesus: “They are working and you know that it is prohibited, according to the law of God the Saturday is the day of rest. How is is they do this?”

But Jesus stopped them (and said): “Look, I’ll explain. There is a law that the priests can take the holy bread and eat it, but people from outside, strangers, cannot eat the holy bread, it is prohibited.

“Have you not yet read the story of David and the former high priest Abiatar, do you not know it?

“David and his army were hungry and David went alone to the tabernacle and took the holy bread and handed it out and the soldiers ate it.

“Let me ask you a question: Did God make the people for the law, so that on Saturday they would obligatorily rest and obey it? No, on the contrary, God graciously gave the Saturday, to help the people.

“Therefore God has given authority to the Son of man, he can ignore that the Saturday is a day of rest if people need help.”

Source: La Biblia en LSM / La Palabra de Dios

<< Mark 2:18-22 in Mexican Sign Language
Mark 3:1-6 in Mexican Sign Language >>

Sabbath

The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated as “Sabbath” in English is rendered as “day we rest” in Tzotzil, in Mairasi as “Jew’s Rest Day,” in Quiotepec Chinantec as “day when people of Israel rested,” in Shilluk as “day of God,” in Obolo as Usen Mbuban or “Holy Day,” and in Mandarin Chinese as ānxírì (安息日) or “rest day” (literally: “peace – rest – day”). (Sources: Tzotzil: Marion Cowan in Notes on Translation with Drill, p. 169ff; Mairasi: Enggavoter 2004; Quiotepec Chinantec: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.; Shilluk: Nida 1964, p. 237; Obolo: Enene Enene; Chinese: Jost Zetzsche)

In Matumbi it is translated as Sabato ya Ayahudi or “Sabbath of the Jews,” to distinguish it from the Islamic Sabbath (which is Friday) or the Christian Sabbath (which is Sunday). (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)

In the old Khmer version as well as in the first new translation this term was rendered as “day of rest” (Thngai Chhup Somrak / ​ថ្ងៃ​ឈប់​សំរាក). Considered inadequate to convey its religious meaning (not only about cessation of work, but also in honor of Yahweh as the Creator), the committee for the Today’s Khmer Version (publ. 2005) decided to keep the Hebrew word and use its transliterated form Thgnai Sabath (​ថ្ងៃ​សប្ប័ទ). “The Buddhist word Thngai Seil ‘day of merits’ used by some Catholics was once under consideration but was rejected because it did not receive unanimous support.” (Source: Joseph Hong in The Bible Translator 1996, p. 233ff. )

In Spanish, the translation is either día de reposo (“day of rest”) or sábado (usually: “Saturday,” derived from the Greek and Hebrew original). Nida (1947, p. 239f.) explains that problem for Spanish and other languages in its sphere of influence: “In translation ‘Sabbath’ into various aboriginal languages of Latin America, a considerable number of translators have used the Spanish sábado, ‘Saturday,’ because it is derived from the Hebrew sabbath and seems to correspond to English usage as well. The difficulty is that sábado means only ‘Saturday’ for most people. There is no religious significance about this word as the is with ‘Sabbath’ in English. Accordingly the [readers] cannot understand the significance of the persecution of Jesus because he worked on ‘Saturday.’ It has been found quite advantageous to use the translation ‘day of rest,’ for this accurately translated the Hebrew meaning of the term and resolves the problem in connection with the prohibitions placed upon some types of activities.”

In French Sign Language it is translated with a sign that depicts closing of the blinds of a store:


“Sabbath” in French Sign Language (source: La Bible en langue des signes française )

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Sabbath .

complete verse (Mark 2:27)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 2:27:

  • Uma: “From there, Yesus also said: ‘God made the worship day in order to help mankind. It is not mankind that was made in order to be oppressed by the customs of the worship day.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “And Isa said to them, ‘God made the day of-no-work to help mankind. Mankind was not created just in order that they could honor the day of-no-work.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “But in spite of that, they did not commit sin. God first created people, and then he commanded the Day of Rest, which is to say, people are more valuable than the Day of Rest.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Then Jesus concluded, ‘God did not create people for the day for-resting but rather God designated the day for-resting for people.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Jesus added on by saying, ‘The Day of Rest has been made-certain as being for the benefit of man. It isn’t that man was created so that he would be enslaved by laws concerning the Day of Rest.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • English translation by Michael Pakaluk (2019): “He told them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Honorary "are" construct denoting God ("say")

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.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Mark 2:27 – 2:28

Exegesis:

dia ton anthrōpon ‘on account of man,’ ‘for the sake of man’: the preposition dia indicates here the reason for the institution of the sabbath.

egeneto ‘became,’ i.e. ‘was made,’ ‘was established.’

hōste (with the indicative, 10.8) ‘therefore,’ ‘consequently,’ ‘so,’ ‘accordingly.’

kurios ‘lord,’ ‘owner,’ ‘ruler,’ ‘master.’

ho huios tou anthrōpou ‘the Son of man’ (cf. 2.10).

kai tou sabbatou ‘even of the sabbath’ (for this use of kai ‘and’ see 1.27); the meaning could possibly be ‘also (i.e. in addition to being lord of other things) of the sabbath’: most translations and commentators, however, prefer the first meaning.

Translation:

Since Jesus is not only the one who asked the question beginning in verse 25, but who also made the statement in this and the succeeding verse, it is sometimes necessary to make this relationship explicit, frequently by repeating the noun subject, i.e. ‘Jesus.’ Them refers to the Pharisees and may be translated as such if there is danger of any other intervening third person plural referent being understood.

Such aphoristic expressions as occur in this verse are almost always difficult to translate because of (1) their shortness (much is left implicit), (2) the double meanings of words involved (it is one thing to speak of man being ‘made,’ but for ‘a sabbath to be made’ is often quite a different matter), and (3) the somewhat tenuous relationship to the context. In this instance the context assists materially in the understanding of the passage, but this is not always true, and even in this instance what is evident to the translator may not be equally clear to the reader.

For sabbath see 1.21.

In many languages one must use different verbs in speaking of instituting the sabbath and of creating man (in Greek and in English the verb ‘to make’ serves quite well). For example, in some instances one must say ‘the sabbath was set aside’ (or ‘ordained,’ ‘commanded’), or if an active rather than passive expression is required ‘God ordered the day of rest for the sake of people; he created people, but not just in order that they could keep the laws of the rest day.’ This expansion involves several matters: (1) the need of employing a fully generic term for man (in English and Greek we may use a singular for a generic, but in many languages a plural is necessary for the same meaning), (2) the necessity of placing a negative with the element negativized (e.g. one cannot say in some languages ‘he did not create men for the sabbath,’ for by placing the negative particle with the verb one would imply a negation of creation; the negative must go properly with the negativized element, namely, the purpose), and (3) the lack of parallelism in (a) the principal verbs (‘ordered’ and ‘created’) and (b) the expressions of ‘for,’ since something done for a person often requires quite a different type of expression than the fact of a person existing for the sake of a particular institution. This means that one must employ quite different descriptions of the relationships between the individuals and the institutions, depending upon the so-called actor-goal relationship. The complex relationships are expressed in a temporal context in Chicahuaxtla Triqui ‘God first made people, then the day of rest for the sake of people; he did not first make the day of rest and then make people for the day of rest.’ The relationship between the sabbath and man is defined somewhat more explicitly in Central Mazahua as ‘the day of rest was made to help people; people were not created to help the day of rest’; Batak Toba ‘the sabbath was instituted for man; man has not been formed for the sabbath.’

For Son of Man see 2.10.

Because of the third person reference to himself in this passage, it may be necessary to specify the relationship between the speaker and the subject by saying ‘I, the Son of man’ (cf. 2.10).

Lord of … is equivalent to ‘has the right to command’ (San Mateo del Mar Huave) or ‘has control over’ (Central Tarahumara), or ‘says what should be done on the rest day’ (Huastec).

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 .