Image taken from He Qi Art . For purchasing prints of this and other artworks by He Qi go to heqiart.com .
For other images of He Qi art works in TIPs, see here.
ἰδόντες δὲ τὸν ἀστέρα ἐχάρησαν χαρὰν μεγάλην σφόδρα.
10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.
Image taken from He Qi Art . For purchasing prints of this and other artworks by He Qi go to heqiart.com .
For other images of He Qi art works in TIPs, see here.
Following is a Macedonian Orthodox icon of the Nativity scene from 1865 (found in Saint George Church in Kočani, North Macedonia).
Down below is a modern icon from the Eritrean Orthodox Church.
Orthodox Icons are not drawings or creations of imagination. They are in fact writings of things not of this world. Icons can represent our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints. They can also represent the Holy Trinity, Angels, the Heavenly hosts, and even events. Orthodox icons, unlike Western pictures, change the perspective and form of the image so that it is not naturalistic. This is done so that we can look beyond appearances of the world, and instead look to the spiritual truth of the holy person or event. (Source )
The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that is translated with “joy” or “gladness” in English is translated with various associations of “sweetness” or taste: Bambara has “the spirit is made sweet,” Kpelle translates as “sweet heart,” and Tzeltal as “the good taste of one’s heart,” Uduk uses the phrase “good to the stomach,” Baoulé “a song in the stomach,” Mískito “the liver is wide open” (“happily letting the pleasures flooding in upon it”) (source: Nida 1952), Mairasi says “good liver” (source: Enggavoter 2004), Nyongar has koort-kwabba-djil or “heart very good” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang), and Chicahuaxtla Triqui “refreshed heart” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.).
See also Seat of the Mind for traditional views of “ways of knowing, thinking, and feeling” and exceeding joy.
Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 2:10:
In very strong terms Matthew describes the response of the men when they saw the star: they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. It is impossible to overtranslate the reaction of the men to the seeing of the star; the translation should express the greatest possible joy. Good News Translation has “how happy they were, what joy was theirs” and New English Bible “they were overjoyed.” New Jerusalem Bible reads “The sight of the star filled them with delight.”
Every language has its own way of expressing happiness or joy, and translators should use the most natural expressions they have. Some languages refer to parts of the body, as in “their hearts (or, their stomachs) were happy (or, sweet),” and so forth. Others say something like “happiness seized them” or “happiness came to them.” Another way may be “their happiness was too great to measure.”
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 .