The Greek in Matthew 10:13 that is translated as “let your peace return to you” or similar in English is translated in the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) with nehmt ihr euren Segen selbst wieder mit, so seid ihr für schlechte Behandlung entschädigt or “take your blessing back with you, so that you will be compensated for bad treatment.”
peace (inner peace)
The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is usually translated into English as “peace,” when referring to one’s inner peace, is (back-) translated with a variety of idioms and phrases:
- “a song in the body” (Baoulé — see also joy)
- “heart coolness” (Eastern Maninkakan / Moronene) / “inner coolness” (Binumarien) (source for Moronene: David Andersen; Binumarien: Oates 1995, p. 249)
- “coolness” (Pular / Kutu) (source for Kutu: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
- “sit down in the heart” (South Bolivian Quechua) / “my heart sits down” (Northern Grebo)
- “rest the heart” (Central Mazahua) / “rest within” (Lacandon) (source: Nida 1952, p. 40 and 128ff.) / “wait well in your heart” (Yatzachi Zapotec) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
- “quietness of heart” (Chol)
- “kobe (= the abdominal region, including the heart) quiet” (Warao) (source: Henry Osborn in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 74ff. )
- “have a quiet mind” (Ngäbere)
- “heart will lie quietly” (Isthmus Zapotec)
- “live quietly” (Central Tarahumara) (source for this and above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
- “quiet goodness” (Kekchí)
- “goodness of life” (Uma) (source: Uma Back Translation)
- “strength of heart” (Highland Puebla Nahuatl)
- “leaning on the liver” (Kare)
- “sweet insides” (Shilluk)
- “evenness” (Toraja-Sa’dan)
- “having your hearts feel oneness for one another” (Tzeltal)
- “have one heart” (Miskito)
- “well-arranged soul” (Mashco Piro)
- “completeness” (Highland Puebla Nahuatl) (source for this and two above: Nida 1952, p. 128ff.)
- “stomach flat in” (“one’s stomach sticks out when one is upset”) (Kimyal) (source: Young 2022)
- “joy in heart” (Eastern Highland Otomi) (source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
- “have security in your heart” (Highland Totonac) (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
- “smooth interior” (Bariai) (source: Bariai Back Translation)
- tangnefedd — “an internal condition that makes external peace (heddwch) possible” (Welsh) (source: Rosa Hunt in Journal of European Baptist Studies 1/23 (2023), p. 1ff. ) (source for all non-attributed translations: Bratcher / Nida)
In American Sign Language it is signed with a compound sign consisting of “become” and “silent.” (Source: Yates 2011, p. 52)
“Peace” in American Sign Language (source )
See also peace (absence of strife) and this devotion on YouVersion and this one on Bible Gateway .
house
The Greek that is translated in English as “house” or similar could not be translated directly in Kui since a house cannot personalize its occupants. So the translation here was “people of the house.” (Source: Helen Evans in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. )
complete verse (Matthew 10:13)
Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 10:13:
- Uma: “If the hearts of the house owners/hosts are good, the Lord God will definitely bless them. But if their hearts are not good, they will not get goodness of life from the Lord.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “If you are treated-according-to-custom/honored by the people of that house the peace you have asked for will stay with him. But if you are not treated-according-to-custom/honored nothing will come of what you said.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And when you go up into a house, invoke a blessing on those who live there saying, ‘May God bless you’, so that God might bless them if they receive you. But if they don’t receive you, never mind, because God will not go ahead and bless them.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
- Kankanaey: “If they are worthy to receive the blessing that you have-said, they will truly be blessed, but if they are not worthy, they will correspondingly not be blessed.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “Well, this truly will be theirs provided they truly believe/obey your teaching, but if not, well indeed it won’t.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
- Tenango Otomi: “If the people who live in the house look well upon you, then they will receive the salutation you give them. But if they do not look well upon you, then the salutation you say does not apply to them.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
formal pronoun: Jesus addressing his disciples and common people
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 Translator 2002, 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 most Dutch translations, Jesus addresses his disciples and common people with the informal pronoun, whereas they address him with the formal form.
formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)
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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).
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Sung version of Matthew 10
Translation commentary on Matthew 10:13
The house is used of the people of the house, and that is the basis for Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and Bible en français courant.
Worthy: see comments on verse 11. Here most translators render it as “if the people of that house receive you well” or “… treat you well.” Similarly, not worthy would be rendered in a sentence such as “if those people do not receive you well.”
Your peace means “the peace which you ask God to bring upon the house.” In such a context peace covers a much wider area than the absence of strife, and it is best represented among the modern translations by Barclay: “let your prayer for God’s blessing rest upon it.” This idea can also be expressed as “pray that God’s peace be with those people” or “pray to God to put his blessing on them.”
Let your peace return to you is translated “let your prayer for God’s blessing return to you” by Barclay. Among the Israelites the spoken blessing was thought to exist by itself and have a power of its own, so that the pronouncement of a blessing actually caused the blessing to take effect. On the other hand, if the blessing were recalled, the benefits would not take effect.
This concept of calling back a blessing is not always easy to express. Some possibilities are “take back the prayer of blessing” or “ask God not to honor your prayer to bless those people.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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