The Greek that is translated as “sacrifice” in English is translated in Huba as hatǝmachi or “shoot misfortune.”
David Frank (in this blog post ) explains: “How is it that ‘shoot misfortune’ comes to mean sacrifice, I wanted to know? Here is the story: It is a traditional term. Whenever there were persistent problems such as a drought, or a rash of sickness or death, the king (or his religious advisor) would set aside a day and call on everyone to prepare food, such as the traditional mash made from sorghum, or perhaps even goat. The food had to be put together outside. The king or his religious advisor would give an address stating what the problem was and what they were doing about it. Then an elder representing the people would take a handful of that food and throw it, probably repeating that action several times, until it was considered to be enough to atone for all the misfortune they had been having. With this action he was ‘shooting (or casting off) misfortune’ to restore well-being to his people. As he threw the food, he would say that this is to remove the misfortune that had fallen on his people, and everybody would respond by saying aɗǝmja, ‘let it be so.’ People could eat some of this food, but they could not bring the food into their houses, because that would mean that they were bringing misfortune into their house. There is still a minority of people in this linguistic and cultural group that practices the traditional religion, but the shooting of misfortune is no longer practiced, and the term ‘shoot misfortune’ is used now in Bible translation to refer to offering a sacrifice. Aɗǝmja is how they translate ‘amen.'”
The Greek terms krino and katakrino/katadikazo that are translated as “judge” and “condemn” respectively in English are translated with only one term in Kutu (tagusa). (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin terms that are typically translated as “mercy” (or “compassion” or “kindness”) in English are translated in various ways. Bratcher / Nida classify them in (1) those based on the quality of heart, or other psychological center, (2) those which introduce the concept of weeping or extreme sorrow, (3) those which involve willingness to look upon and recognize the condition of others, or (4) those which involve a variety of intense feelings.
While the Englishmercy originates from the Latinmerces, originally “price paid,” Romance languages (Italian, Spanish, Corsican, Catalan) and other Germanic languages (German, Swedish, Danish — Barmherzigkeit, barmhärtighet and barmhjertighed, respectively) tend to follow the Latin misericordia, lit. “misery-heart.”
Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 12:7:
Uma: “For I am the Child of Mankind who was sent by God. I have power/authority to say what may/can be done on the day of worship. ‘In the Holy Book, God says like this: ‘I do not request livestock that you offer to me. What I request, [is that] you love others.’ So, if you had known the meaning of those words, you would not have criticized those who are not wrong.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “There is a writing in the holy-book, it says, ‘Sacrifices are not valuable/important to me but that is what I want, that you have pity/mercy on your companions.’ If you really understand the meaning of this, you will not fell judgment on a person who has no sin.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Jesus said also, ‘If your understanding of this had been correct, you would not have criticized those who had no sin.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “There is that which God caused-to-be-written that says, ‘Your pitying your companions is more valuable to me than your sacrificing animals to me.’ If you had understood what this means, you would not have blamed the one(s) with no sin.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “For hopefully you wouldn’t have passed judgment on those who had no sin if only you knew the meaning of this utterance of God which says, ‘I want you (pl.) to be merciful/generous. As long as you are not merciful/generous, I don’t want your sacrifices with which you ask for forgiveness.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “Yet you do not understand the word written in the Holy Book which says: ‘I want that you have pity, because greater is the value of this than of the sacrifices you make,’ it says. For if you had pity, then you wouldn’t say that people who do nothing wrong have sin.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
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 Translator2002, 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.
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 show different degree of politeness is through the choice of a first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
And if you had known what this means of Revised Standard Version contrasts rather sharply with the restructuring of Good News Translation, which begins the verse with “The scripture says….” This restructuring is helpful for at least two reasons: it simplifies the sentence structure, and it identifies Jesus’ words as a scripture quotation. The quotation comes from Hosea 6.6, a passage previously quoted in Matthew 9.13. See comments there.
The word this refers to this quotation from Hosea, but in many languages it is not usual to refer ahead to something that is not yet specified. So a third advantage of the restructuring of Good News Translation is that this problem also is resolved.
If you had known what this means here means more than simply being aware of something. The Pharisees probably thought they understood the verse, but Jesus is saying “If you knew what this really means” or “If you understood the real meaning.”
I desire mercy, and not sacrifice: note that the I in this quotation is God. The translation should not give the impression it is Jesus. Some can begin the verse by saying “God says in the Scriptures.” Another way is to use indirect speech, as in “The Scriptures say that God wants people to be merciful….”
Condemned is used again in verse 37; elsewhere in the New Testament it is found in Luke 6.37; James 5.6. In this context it means “declared people guilty,” “judged people to be guilty,” or “said that people have sinned.”
Guiltless is the same adjective used in Matthew 12.5. In this sentence guiltless may be translated slightly differently because of the overall structure of the sentence, although the meaning is the same as in verse 5. The last part of the verse can be “You would not have said that innocent people were guilty of sin” or “You would not have called people sinners who are not guilty.”
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 .
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 show 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. )
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