Matthew 15:21-28 in Mexican Sign Language

Following is the translation of Matthew 15:21-28 (“The Canaanite Woman’s Faith”) into Mexican Sign Language with glosses (labels for signs) and a back-translation underneath:


© La Biblia en LSM / La Palabra de Dios

Glosas y retrotraducciones en español (haga clic o pulse aquí)

(v. 21)
glosas: JESÚS SALIR CL:índice-dirigió-de-allí ARRIBAR COLONIA LUGAR TIRO Y SIDÓN, ENTRAR.

trad 1: Jesús salió y llegó a lugares (comunidad, región) llamada Tiro y a Sidón
trad 2: Jesús salió, se digirió a la región (de) Tiro y Sidón; arribó y entró (a la región).

(v. 22)
glosas: ALLÁ MUJER VIVIR COLONIA, SU FAMILIA ORIGINAL ANTEPASADO+++ REGIÓN CANAÁN. ESO
MISMO MUJER, SALIR CL:1-ir-triste MIRA(descubre) JESÚS 2-CLAMA FUERTE: ¡SEÑOR SUYO FAMILIA DAVID TRADICIÓN LO-MISMO JESÚS, MI HIJA MUJER GRAVEMENTE FUERTE SUFRIR HAY ADENTRO DEMONIO, TÚ SENTIR(misericordia) AYUDARME++ FAVOR(ruego)++++.

trad 1: Allí una mujer nativa de esa región cananea salió y al ver a Jesús gritó muy fuerte diciendo “¡¡¡Señor!!! Descendiente del (Rey) David (hijo de David) mi hija está sufriendo tiene un demonio
ayúdame (ten misericordia)”.
trad 2: Una mujer que vivía allí, cuya familia era de origen Cananea, salió (caminando con mucha tristeza) y al verle a Jesús gritó muy fuerte (diciendo) “¡Señor, descendiente del (Rey) David! Mi hija está grave, sufre mucho (lit. fuerte sufrimiento), tiene (un) demonio dentro (de ella). ¡Ten misericordia y ayúdame! ¡Por favor, por favor, por favor, por favor”!

(v. 23)
glosas: JESÚS VOLTEAR-VER(dur) RESPUESTA NADA SILENCIO APAGAR. / ELLOS DISCÍPULOS CL:5-acercarse-1(molesta) OYE JESÚS, ELLA MUJER 2-GRITA++ A-TI INSISTIR NOSOTROS CL:5-5-viendo-molesto PEDIR ROGARON(favor) TÚ DICE DESPÍDELA-VETE++++.

trad 1: Jesús no le dio respuesta alguna, se quedó callado, sus discípulos se acercaron a Jesús y le pidieron que le dijera a la mujer que se fuera pues iba detrás de ellos gritando, dando voces y todo mundo le volteaba a ver.
trad 2: Jesús se volvió para verla, (pero) no le dio respuesta, se quedó callado. Los discípulos, (que estaban molestos) se acercaron y le dijeron “Jesús, esa mujer sigue gritando y te está insistiendo. Nosotros (seguimos) volteando a verla. Te pedimos, por favor dile ‘¡Fuera! ¡Largo! ¡Vete de aquí’”!

(v. 24)
glosas: JESÚS CL:ver-volver-gesto-comprender OYE YO DICE(a mujer): COLONIA PERSONA JUDÍOS COMUNIDAD ELLOS COMO PARECE PARECIDO OVEJAS PERDER CL:5-5-dispersar-perder+++, DIOS MANDAR ENVIAR YO CL:1-venir AYUDAR 2-VEN++ SOLO COMUNIDAD.

trad 1: Jesús desvió la mirada de los discípulos hacia ella y le dijo, “Dios me envió a las ovejas perdidas (pecadores) del pueblo de Israel”.
trad 2: Jesús los vio (a sus discípulos) y volvió su vista (hacia ella y delicadamente le dijo) “Yo te digo, las personas judías son parecidas a ovejas perdidas que se han dispersado. Dios me ha enviado, he venido a ayudarles y a llamarles para que vengan, sola (a esa) comunidad”.

(v. 25)
glosas: PERO ELLA MUJER VER CL:1-acercarse-1-Jesús ARRODILLAR OYE(arriba) ¡SEÑOR POR-FAVOR AYUDARME(socórreme)+++!

trad 1: Entonces la mujer se acercó a Jesús y se hinco frente a Él y le pidió “Señor, ayúdame por favor, ayúdame”.
trad. 2 Pero la mujer quedó mirándolo, se acercó (a Jesús), se arrodilló (y le pidió) “Señor, ayúdame por favor, ayúdame”.

(v. 26)
glosas: JESÚS VER-abajo(misericordia) OYE EJEMPLO MESA NIÑOS CL:sentados-alrededor PAN COMERdur. PAPÁ 1-venir QUITAR PAN TOMAR DAR-MUA PERRO CHICO CL:abrir-boca-morder COMER. ¿TÚ PENSAR BIEN? NO+++//.

trad 1: Jesús le respondió “no es correcto que el pan de los hijos el padre se los quite de la mesa y se los dé a los perros chiquitos”.
trad 2: Jesús la vio (con misericordia y respondió): “Oye, por ejemplo: los niños están sentados alrededor de una mesa comiendo pan y el padre se acerca a ellos y les quita el pan, arrancándolo y dándolo al perrito (o los perritos) para comer. ¿Piensas (que esto sería) bueno? (Pues) no”.

(v. 27)
glosas: MUJER VERarriba “SEÑOR SÍ++, TÚ TIENES RAZÓN. PERO EJEMPLO HOMBRE DUEÑO SUYO PERRO CHICO, MESA NIÑOS CL:sentados-alrededor PAN COMERdur, OCURRIR FALLA PAN CL:comida-caer-al-piso+++, PERRO CHICO CL:perrito-patas-animal-mover(der,izq) MORDER+++ COMER.” Palma(misericordia) //

trad 1: La mujer le dijo “Señor, estando comiendo los hijos en la mesa, si se caen pedazos de pan al piso el perro del dueño de allí come”.
trad 2: La mujer le vio (y le dijo) “Señor, sí, tienes razón. Pero, por ejemplo, los niños están sentados alrededor de la mesa comiendo pan, si por casualidad trozos de pan caen al suelo, el perrito del hombre corre a comérselos” (y ella siguió mirándole, suplicando en silencio misericordia).

(v. 28) glosas: JESÚS VER(admirar) OYE MUJER ¡HUY GRANDE FE! ¡TÚ PEDIR-ME YO HACER!/// MISMO-INSTANTE TIEMPO ALLÍ HIJA DENTRO DEMONIO CL:salir-de-persona-postrada PIRARSE. HIJA gesto-aliviar ALIVIAR(rápido) SANO.

trad 1: Jesús le respondió “mujer tu fe es grande y lo que me pides eso voy a hacer” y en ese instante su hija era liberada del demonio y su hija quedó sana al momento.
trad 2: Jesús la vio (con admiración y le dijo) “Mujer, ¡grande es (tu) fe! He hecho lo que me pediste”. Al mismo tiempo, el demonio (que estaba) dentro de su hija salió y se fue. (De inmediato su) hija se alivió (y quedó) sana.

Glosas preparadas por Alfredo González Yáñez (traductor sordo)
Traducción 1 por Fidel Montemayor Zetina
Traducción 2 por Shelley Dufoe

glosses (v. 21) (click or tap here)

JESUS GO-OUT CL:index-windy-path-from-there ARRIVE AREA/REGION PLACE TYRE AND SIDON, ENTER.

translation: Jesus went out, (headed towards), arrived at and entered the region of Tyre and Sidon.

glosses (v. 22) (click or tap here)

THERE WOMAN LIVE AREA/REGION, POSS-3 FAMILY ORIGINAL ANCESTOR+++ REGION CANAAN. THAT THE-SAME-ONE WOMAN, LEAVE/GO-OUT CL:1-go-sadly SPOT(discover) JESUS SHOUT STRONG: LORD POSS-2 FAMILY DAVID TRADITION/MANY-GENERATIONS THE-SAME-ONE JESUS, POSS-1 CHILD/OFFSPRING FEMALE GRAVELY-ILL STRONG SUFFER HAVE INSIDE DEMON, INDEX-2 FEEL(compassion) YOU-HELP-ME++ PLEASE(pleading)++++.

translation: A woman (who) lived in the area, whose family was of Canaanite origin, went out (walking sadly). She spotted Jesus and loudly shouted “Lord, descendent of (King) David! My daughter is gravely ill and suffering a lot, she has a demon inside (her). Feel compassion and help me! Help me! Please, please, please, please!”

glosses (v. 23) (click or tap here)

JESUS TURN-LOOK(woman, dur) RESPOND NOTHING SILENT SWITCHED-OFF. / INDEX-3pl(left) DISCIPLES CL:5-approach-1(upset) HEY JESUS, INDEX-3 WOMAN 2-SHOUT++ TO-INDEX-2 INSIST INDEX-2pl-excl. CL:5-5-multitud-turn-look(upset) REQUEST PLEASE INDEX-2 TELL-HER GO-AWAY++++.

translation: Jesus turned and observed the woman, without responding, he remained silent. The disciples (who were upset) approached him and said “Jesus, that woman continues to shout and insist. We (keep) turning around to look at her. We ask you to please tell her ‘Go away, leave, get out of here, shoo!’”

glosses (v. 24) (click or tap here)

JESUS LOOK(disciples, dur)-TURN-LOOK(to-woman) HEY INDEX-1 TELL-YOU(to the woman): COLONY PEOPLE JEWISH COMMUNITY INDEX-3pl LIKE SEEM SIMILAR SHEEP LOST CL:5-5-disperse+++, GOD ORDER SEND INDEX-1 CL:1-come HELP 2-COME-HERE++, ONLY COMMUNITY.

translation: Jesus looked (at his disciples, then turned his gaze towards the woman, and gently told her), “I tell you, Jewish people are like lost sheep that have scattered. God has sent me, I have come to help them and call them to come, only (that) community.”

glosses (v. 25) (click or tap here)

BUT INDEX-3 WOMAN LOOK CL:1-approach-1(Jesus) KNEEL HEY LORD PLEASE YOU-HELP-ME+++!

translation: But the woman looked at him, approached him, knelt (and pleaded) “Lord, please help me, help me, help me!”

glosses (v. 26) (click or tap here)

JESUS LOOK-DOWN(mercy) HEY EXAMPLE TABLE CHILDREN CL:sitting-in-circle BREAD EATdur. DAD CL:1-come TAKE-AWAY BREAD GRAB GIVE-TO DOG LITTLE-ANIMAL open-mouth-bite EAT. YOU THINK GOOD? NO+++ //.

translation: Jesus looked down at her (with compassion and responded) “For example: the children are sitting around a table eating bread and the dad approaches them and takes away the bread, grabbing it and giving it to the little dog(s) to eat. Do you think (that would be) good? No.”

glosses (v. 27) (click or tap here)

WOMAN LOOK-UP “LORD YES++, INDEX-2 HAVE REASON. BUT EXAMPLE MAN OWNER POSS-3 DOG LITTLE-ANIMAL, TABLE CHILDREN CL:sitting-in-cirle BREAD EATdur, OCCURRENCE FAIL/ERROR BREAD CL:food-fall-to-ground DOG LITTLE-ANIMAL CL:dog-paws-move(right, left) BITE/CHEW+++ EAT.” Palms(mercy) //

translation: The woman looked up (at him and said) “Lord, yes, you’re right. But, for example, the children are sitting around a table eating bread and if scraps happen to fall to the floor, the man’s little dog scurries to eat them,” (and she continued looking at him, silently pleading for mercy).

glosses (v. 28) (click or tap here)

JESUS LOOK-AT(admiration) HEY WOMAN WOW GREAT/LARGE FAITH! INDEX-2 ASK-ME INDEX-1 DO!/// THE-SAME TIME WAY-OVER-THERE CHILD/OFFSPRING FEMALE INSIDE-OF DEMON CL:come-out-of-prone-person LEAVE-QUICKLY. CHILD/OFFSPRING gesture-feel-better FEEL-BETTER(quickly) HEAL/HEALTHY.

translation : Jesus looked at her (with admiration and told her) “Woman, (you have) great faith! You asked me, and I have done it. At that same moment, over there the demon (that was) inside her daughter quickly came out and left, and her daughter was instantly healed.

English glosses and back-translation by Shelley Dufoe

See also Mark 7:24b – 30 in Mexican Sign Language.

The same passage (or the parallel plassage in Mark 7) has also been translated in the following sign languages:

See also Sign Language Bible Translations Have Something to Say to Hearing Christians .

complete verse (Matthew 15:26)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 15:26:

  • Uma: “Yesus answered: ‘It is not good to take the food of the children and feed it to the dogs.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Isa answered her in a parable, he said, ‘It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Jesus answered, ‘It is not good if we (dual) take the food of the children and feed it to the dogs.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Whereupon Jesus said parabling, ‘It emphatically isn’t right if the child’s food is fed to dogs.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Jesus spoke saying, ‘It really isn’t possible/acceptable to grab-away what is being eaten by a child just in order to throw it to the dogs.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Jesus said to this woman: ‘But if I first help you and you are not a Jew, it is as though the food were taken from the children and given to the dogs.'” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

dog

Dogs were domesticated very early and were used for hunting and as watchdogs in the ancient world. In Egypt as early as 4000 B.C. people made pottery images that indicate that sleek fast hunting dogs were bred which looked like the modern greyhound. From Babylonian sculpture we know that around 2500 B.C. large hunting dogs that looked like the modern bull-mastiff were kept by people in the Mesopotamian civilizations.

Among the Jews however while dogs were kept mainly as watch-dogs they were held in contempt and left to feed themselves by scavenging. This habit of scavenging and the fact that dogs were possibly associated with some Egyptian gods meant that dogs were seen as very unclean animals by the Jews. The dog found in Jewish settlements in Bible times was probably the pariah dog Canis familiaris putiatini which looked something like a small light brown Alsatian or German shepherd. This type of dog in its wild and domesticated forms is found all over the Middle East and on the mainland coasts of South and Southeast Asia (where it is known as the crab-eating dog). The Australian dingo is also very similar.

Small pet dogs were kept in homes in the Greek and Roman civilizations by gentiles but not by Jews. This is probably the type of dog referred to by the Greek word kunarion in Matthew 15:26 and Mark 7:27.

[Sarah Ruden (2021, p. 27), who translates kunarion as “little doggy,” says the following: “In the entire Greek Bible, only [these two passages] use this diminutive (kunarion) of the word for ‘dog,’ a rare and largely comical word. This word choice weakens the usual sense of dogs as dirty and uncivilized and excluded from the home, much less from the table that symbolized God’s providential bounty.”]

As mentioned above dogs were held in contempt as unclean. To call someone a dog was therefore very derogatory and to refer to someone as a “dead dog” was even more so. Israelites viewed dogs as second only to pigs as unclean animals. Dogs as scavengers around the villages ate anything from household refuse to animal carcasses and human excreta. They even ate human corpses that lay unburied after battles. Furthermore the dog was possibly one of the symbols of the Egyptian god Anubis (although many modern scholars believe the symbol to be the jackal).

With all of the above in mind it is understandable that dying and then being eaten by unclean dogs was seen as the worst of all possible fates.

In the first century A.D. gentiles were considered to be unclean and were referred to by Jews in a derogatory way as “dogs.” There is therefore strong irony in the expression in Philippians 3:2 where Judaizing Christians are referred to as dogs.

One additional connotation associated with dogs in the Bible is sexual perversion and promiscuity a connotation probably arising from the fact that sexually aroused male dogs do not always differentiate between sexes as they seek to mate and the fact that dogs of both sexes mate repeatedly with different partners.

Source: All Creatures Great and Small: Living things in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

Honorary "rare" construct denoting God ("answer")

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 rare (られ) 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, kotae-rare-ru (答えられる) or “answer” is used.

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

Translation commentary on Matthew 15:26

It is not fair (so also New Jerusalem Bible, Moffatt) is translated “It is not right” by New English Bible, An American Translation, and New American Bible (Good News Translation “It isn’t right”). Barclay has “It is not proper.” The Greek adjective which appears as “fair,” “right,” and “proper” in these translations literally means “good,” and it may be used in a wide variety of contexts. Some Greek manuscripts have a wording which means “lawful” or “permitted,” but TC-GNT believes that this was an attempt by a later scribe to strengthen the reply of Jesus to the woman. Translations evidently do not reflect this alternative possibility. Since the context suggests the meaning “appropriate,” one may even translate “People do not….”

The children’s bread may be rendered “the food for the children” or “the food the children eat.” Bread (Good News Translation “food”) was the basic element in the Jewish meal and can refer to the meal itself or to food in general.

The intention of throw is not to frighten the dogs away but to give them something to eat. “Throw it (the food) to the dogs for them to eat” will eliminate this misunderstanding in those cases where it exists.

Commentators generally note the sayings of certain Jewish teachers who referred to Gentiles as dogs, but this does not support the argument that all Jews felt this way toward them. And there is no evidence from other New Testament sources that Jesus himself ever spoke of Gentiles in this manner. In fact, it is most probable that the saying is not intended to make a derogatory remark about Gentiles, but rather to differentiate order of priority: children (symbolizing the Jews) are fed before the household pets (dogs symbolizing the Gentiles). In a Palestinian household, which had children and household dogs, the children would be fed first, after which the dogs would be given the scraps from the table. The woman must have understood Jesus’ remark in this way, as her response in verse 27 intimates. Consequently Jerusalem Bible translates “house-dogs,” with a footnote indicating the root meaning of the word is “little or pet dogs.” Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, apparently accepting the same exegesis, but without a footnote, has “little dogs.” There are languages which make a distinction between wild and domestic dogs, and in such cases “pet dogs” is a good rendering. In other cultures, however, “dogs” will suffice.

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 .