complete verse (Matthew 26:5)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 26:5:

  • Uma: “We’d better not arrest him during the big day, lest the crowds go-wild / get-out-of-control.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “‘Let’s not do it (lit. don’t) during the time of the celebration,’ they said, ‘perhaps the people will make an uproar/riot.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “‘It would be better,’ they said, ‘if we do not cath him at the time of the feast because people might cause trouble.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “They said, ‘Just-so-long-as we don’t have-it-coincide with the fiesta lest the many-people riot.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “But they said, ‘Don’t make it coincide with the fiesta for maybe the crowd of people will get angry and make-trouble.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Concerning this word they said: ‘Let us not arrest him during the feast, in order that the people won’t rise up to rescue him,’ they said.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Matthew 26:5

Not during the feast is made into a complete statement by Good News Translation: “We must not do it during the festival.” The feast is obviously a reference to the Passover (see verse 2).

The impersonal construction of the Greek text, represented by Revised Standard Version‘s lest there be a tumult among the people, is translated by Good News Translation as “the people will riot.” The noun rendered tumult is also used in 27.24 but nowhere else in the Gospel.

For many translators indirect discourse is more natural; as for example, “But they did not feel they could arrest Jesus and have him put to death during the festival, because there was a possibility that the people would riot.”

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 .