The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “flood” in English is translated in the German Luther Bible as Sintflut and the influential Dutch Bibles Statenvertaling and Nieuwe Vertaling as zondvloed. Both terms originally mean “great / permanent flood” but have folk-etymologically been reinterpreted as “sin flood” (“sin” in Dutch is zonde and in German Sünde).
Today these terms are used in either language figuratively as well (“a lot of water” or “a lot”). (Source: Jost Zetzsche)
Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 24:38:
Uma: “At the time of the prophet Nuh long ago, before the flood came, mankind was just lax, they didn’t know what was going to hit them. They were just continually eating and drinking, marrying-off their children [lit., causing-to-get-married and causing-to-marry], on and on like this until the prophet Nuh entered the big boat.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “At that time, the flood had not yet come, the people did not think of anything than eating and drinking, getting married and marrying until the day was reached when Nu went into the ship.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “For before the ocean overflowed they never thought about what would happen. The only thing people thought about was lively times, so they ate, and they drank, they got married right up to the time Noah went into the big boat called the Ark.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Because at that time before the world was flooded, they continued eating and drinking and marrying until the day that (pl.) Noe entered the ark.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “For when the flood hadn’t yet come which dissolved the world, people weren’t thinking about what would happen to them. On the contrary everyone was feasting, drinking and getting married until Noe went on board the boat he’d made.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “Because on that day people ate, some married, some had their daughters asked for. But the people didn’t realize what was to happen. They didn’t know until the day Noah entered into the boat.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
The Hebrew, Latin; Ge’ez and Greek that is transliterated as “Noah” in English is translated in Spanish Sign Language with a sign that combines the letter N + “boat.” (Source: Steve Parkhurst)
The following is a stained glass window depicting Noah by Endre Odon Hevezi and Gyula Bajo from 1965 for the Debre Libanos Monastery, Oromia, Ethiopia:
Photo by Timothy A. Gonsalves, hosted by Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license
Stained glass is not just highly decorative, it’s a medium which has been used to express important religious messages for centuries. Literacy was not widespread in the medieval and Renaissance periods and the Church used stained glass and other artworks to teach the central beliefs of Christianity. In Gothic churches, the windows were filled with extensive narrative scenes in stained glass — like huge and colorful picture storybooks — in which worshipers could ‘read’ the stories of Christ and the saints and learn what was required for their religious salvation. (Source: Victoria and Albert Museum )
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
Although verses 37-41 are without parallel in the discourses of either Mark or Luke, Luke includes this material earlier (17.26-27, 34-35), combining it with the illustration of Lot’s experience in Sodom (17.28-29).
Good News Translation‘s restructuring of verse 37 intimates that the contrast is between what happened to the people of Noah’s day and what will happen to the people who are on earth when the Son of Man comes. Such an interpretation finds support in verse 39: “… the flood came and swept them all away.” However, it seems more likely that the intention of the saying is to indicate that the affairs of daily life (eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage) continued up to the moment that Noah entered the boat. The message is then that judgment falls, not because people are engaged in particularly evil activities, but rather because they conduct the normal affairs of life without consideration of the approaching divine judgment. Accordingly, New English Bible translates “As things were in Noah’s day, so will they be…”; Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “When the Son of Man comes, it will be as it was during the time of Noah. 38 At that time before the great flood came they ate and drank and married as usual….” Barclay apparently allows for either or both interpretations: “What happened in the time of Noah will happen again at the coming of the Son of Man.”
For the coming of the Son of man, see verse 27 and comments.
Complete understanding of verse 38 requires some knowledge of the Old Testament story of Noah, his ark, and the flood. But much of this information cannot be put into the translation itself and can only appear in a short footnote or the Glossary. What translators can do in the text, if necessary, is render the flood as “the time when God covered the whole world with water” or “the time when the whole world was flooded,” and render the ark as “the boat Noah built” or “the boat that God told Noah to build so he could escape the flood.” But this was a boat big enough to carry many animals as well as several people, so translators should use a term that is appropriate.
The pronoun they is usually translated as “people” (Good News Translation).
Translators should be careful not to render the activities eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage so that readers think that was what people were doing at the actual moment of the flood, but rather that people continued with these kinds of activities as usual. See the Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch example in the second paragraph of this discussion.
For marrying and giving in marriage, see discussion at 22.30.
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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