complete verse (Matthew 12:35)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 12:35:

  • Uma: “People who are good, definitely speak words that are good, because they continually think-about good [things/matters]. So also evil people, their words are also evil, because they continually think about evil [things/matters].” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “A good person has good customs and says good things because he is/has good in his liver. But a bad person because he is/has bad in his liver therefore his customs and his speech are bad.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “A person whose custom is good, what he says also is good. A person whose custom is bad, what he says is also bad.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “The good person, what he brings-out is good, because of-course what is stored in his mind is good. But the bad person, what he brings-out is bad, because of-course what is stored in his mind is bad.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Because as for a person whose nature/ways are good, what comes out of his mouth is always good, because wholly good is what he stores in his mind. However as for the person who stores wholly evil in his mind, wholly evil indeed comes out of his mouth.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “The good person speaks the good word because his heart is good. But the person whose heart is not good has evil words in his heart and these come from his mouth.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
  • German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999): “Like a large chest, a person’s heart contains a store from which he draws what he shares with others. If the heart contains a treasure, then what a person passes on is good. If it contains only worthless junk, he is passing on bad things.”

formal pronoun: Jesus addressing religious leaders

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 religious leaders with the formal pronoun, showing respect. Compare that with the typical address with the informal pronoun of the religious leaders.

The only two exceptions to this are Luke 7:40/43 and 10:26 where Jesus uses the informal pronoun as a response to the sycophantic use of the formal pronoun by the religious leaders (see formal pronoun: religious leaders addressing Jesus).

In most Dutch translations, the same distinctions are made, with the exception of Luke 10:26 where Jesus is using the formal pronoun. In Afrikaans and Western Frisian the informal pronoun is used throughout.

Translation commentary on Matthew 12:35

Verse 35 uses a different imagery to repeat the thought of verse 34. The good man is to be understood in the sense of “A good person” (Good News Translation).

Good treasure is rendered “treasure of good things” (Good News Translation), “the store of good” (New English Bible), and “his store of goodness” (Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible). The Greek word treasure may refer to the treasure itself, or to the box, room, or house in which the treasure is stored. Both the context (verse 34) and the parallel in Luke 6.45 (“good treasure of his heart”) indicate that the place where the treasure is stored is compared to the heart. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch removes the figure entirely and translates the verse “A good man brings forth good because he is good in his innermost being. An evil man can only bring forth evil because he is evil from the ground up.”

Of course, there are ways to retain the figure and still convey the meaning. Examples for the first half of the verse are “A good man is able to bring out good things (or, actions) from the great good that is in him like a treasure” and “A good man has good stored up in him like a treasure, and so he does good things.”

Some can use the same type of sentence for the evil man, but it may not seem natural to speak of a treasure of evil. Then possible renderings may be “An evil man can bring out only evil things (or, actions) from the great evil that is in him like in a store room” or “An evil man has evil stored up in him like in a store house, and so he does evil things.”

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 .

SIL Translator’s Notes on Matthew 12:35

12:35

This verse is a parable with a similar meaning to 12:34c. A good person will say good things and do good deeds because his mind is filled with good thoughts, feelings, and desires. But an evil person will say evil things and do evil deeds because his mind is filled with evil thoughts, feelings, and desires.

12:35a

The good man: This phrase refers to a man who is moral and upright. It refers to any good person. It does not refer to a specific person.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

A good person (Good News Translation)
-or-
A moral/upright man
-or-
Good people (Revised English Bible)

brings good things: This phrase refers to nonphysical things that figuratively “come out” of a person. These are the good words that he says and the good deeds that he does.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

do the good things (God’s Word)
-or-
they say good things (New Century Version)

Here are some other ways to translate this entire clause:

A good person says the good words that come from his good heart
-or-
Good people have good things in their hearts, and so they say good things (New Century Version)
-or-
Good people do the good things that are in them (God’s Word)

out of his good store of treasure: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as treasure can refer to “valuable things” or “the place where valuable things are stored.” In the context of this paragraph speaking of the heart (12:34b), it probably refers primarily to the place. So the treasure is the treasury/storehouse. This is a figure of speech that refers to the heart/insides.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

from the treasury of a good heart (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
out of their hearts (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
from his good heart/insides

The phrase “a good heart” refers to the upright/moral inner qualities of a person. It does not mean a physically healthy heart. In some languages, it may be more natural to speak of “the good things in a person’s heart.” For example:

have good things in their hearts (New Century Version)

12:35b

and the evil man brings evil things out of his evil store of treasure: This clause has the same grammatical structure as 12:35a. So you should translate it in the same way. For example:

An evil/bad person says the evil words that come from his evil heart
-or-
But evil people have evil in their hearts, so they say evil things. (New Century Version)

-or-

But evil people do the evil things that are in them. (God’s Word)

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