pray / prayer

The Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and Greek that is translated as “pray” (or “prayer”) in English is often translated as “talking with God” (Central Pame, Tzeltal, Chol, Chimborazo Highland Quichua, Shipibo-Conibo, Kaqchikel, Tepeuxila Cuicatec, Copainalá Zoque, Central Tarahumara).

Other solutions include:

  • “to beg” or “to ask,” (full expression: “to ask with one’s heart coming out,” which leaves out selfish praying, for asking with the heart out leaves no place for self to hide) (Tzotzil)
  • “to cause God to know” (Huichol)
  • “to raise up one’s words to God” (implying an element of worship, as well as communication) (Miskito, Lacandon) (source of this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Shilluk: “speak to God” (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)
  • Mairasi: “talk together with Great Above One (=God)” (source: Enggavoter, 2004)
  • San Blas Kuna: “call to one’s Father” (source: Claudio and Marvel Iglesias in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 85ff. )
  • Ik: waan: “beg.” Terrill Schrock (in Wycliffe Bible Translators 2016, p. 93) explains (click or tap here to read more):

    What do begging and praying have to do with each other? Do you beg when you pray? Do I?

    “The Ik word for ‘visitor’ is waanam, which means ‘begging person.’ Do you beg when you go visiting? The Ik do. Maybe you don’t beg, but maybe when you visit someone, you are looking for something. Maybe it’s just a listening ear.

    When the Ik hear that [my wife] Amber and I are planning trip to this or that place for a certain amount of time, the letters and lists start coming. As the days dwindle before our departure, the little stack of guests grows. ‘Please, sir, remember me for the allowing: shoes, jacket (rainproof), watch, box, trousers, pens, and money for the children. Thank you, sir, for your assistance.’

    “A few people come by just to greet us or spend bit of time with us. Another precious few will occasionally confide in us about their problems without asking for anything more than a listening ear. I love that.

    “The other day I was in our spare bedroom praying my list of requests to God — a nice list covering most areas of my life, certainly all the points of anxiety. Then it hit me: Does God want my list, or does he want my relationship?

    “I decided to try something. Instead of reading off my list of requests to God, I just talk to him about my issues without any expectation of how he should respond. I make it more about our relationship than my list, because if our personhood is like God’s personhood, then maybe God prefers our confidence and time to our lists, letters, and enumerations.”

In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning (click or tap here to read more):

  • For Acts 1:14, 20:36, 21:5: kola ttieru-yawur nehla — “hold the waist and hug the neck.” (“This is the more general term for prayer and often refers to worship in prayer as opposed to petition. The Luang people spend the majority of their prayers worshiping rather than petitioning, which explains why this term often is used generically for prayer.”)
  • For Acts 28:9: sumbiani — “pray.” (“This term is also used generically for ‘prayer’. When praying is referred to several times in close proximity, it serves as a variation for kola ttieru-yawur nehla, in keeping with Luang discourse style. It is also used when a prayer is made up of many requests.”)
  • For Acts 8:15, 12:5: polu-waka — “call-ask.” (“This is a term for petition that is used especially when the need is very intense.”)

Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.

gentiles / nations

The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).

Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).

In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

See also nations.

complete verse (Matthew 6:7)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 6:7:

  • Uma: “‘When praying, don’t continually repeat-repeat without thinking, like people who do not know God. They think/say, if their words are long, their prayers will be fulfilled.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “‘When you (pl.) pray, do not say lots (of words) like the people who do not know God, because they think that God hears them when they say many words/say much.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “When you pray, don’t use many words which have no value, because this is what the people do who don’t worship the true God. What is in their breath is: God will hear their praying if it is very long.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “‘In your praying, don’t make-it-very-long without thinking about the meaning of what you are saying like the people who don’t know God. That’s what they are doing, because they think that their prayers will be heard because of their many words.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Well, also in this praying of yours (pl.), don’t just keep repeating and repeating as is done by those who aren’t God’s people. Because they assume-mistakenly that by this repetition of theirs they will be listened to in that prayer of theirs.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “When you pray to God don’t keep going on and on with the words you speak to him. Because this is what the people who do not know God do, they think that because they go on talking away for a long time, thus God will listen to what they tell him.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Matthew 6:7

And in praying (Good News Translation “When you pray”) translates a Greek participle. New English Bible and New Jerusalem Bible render “In your prayers” and Barclay “When you say your prayers.” It is translationally sound, of course, to render the participle as a finite verb (so Good News Translation), drawing the subject “you” from the main verb in the clause.

Most translations will begin this verse very much as they did verses 5 and 6, or they may have “The way you should pray, it is not by using….”

Heap up empty phrases (Good News Translation “use a lot of meaningless words”) translates one verb in Greek. It occurs only here in the New Testament, and apparently there is only one known occurrence of its usage in Greek literature outside the New Testament. The meaning is somehow related to for their many words at the end of the verse. Some scholars see in the verb the meaning “speak stammeringly, say the same thing over and over again.” At least one scholar understands the verb to be onomatopoeic, that is, it sounds like its referent. In Greek the verb consists of two parts, a stem meaning “speak,” and a prefix batta, which is not a meaningful word. If the verb is taken to be onomatopoeic, the sense will then be “go on and on saying ‘batta, batta, batta.’ ” Others see a probable connection between this word and a word found in an Aramaic papyrus from Qumran which means “without effect.” Several scholars follow yet another interpretation. Inasmuch as the prayers of pagans (and not hypocrites) is in focus, they take this as a reference to the pagan practice of heaping up names or terms for God to ensure that the correct name of God would not be omitted during their prayers. Since it is impossible to be conclusive, the translator is advised to follow one of the standard translations; for example: “do not go babbling on like the heathen” (New English Bible), “do not babble as the pagans do” (Jerusalem Bible), “do not rattle on like the pagans” (New American Bible), and “don’t use a lot of words like the heathen do” (Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1st edition). Other models translators can follow include “Don’t use a lot of words that don’t make sense” and “Don’t go on repeating strange sounds (or, words).” This sentence may be restructured in some translations: “The way you should pray, it is not by using a lot of words that don’t make sense. That is what the pagans do.”

Gentiles (Good News Translation “pagans”) was first used in 5.47 (see comments there).

“God will hear them” of Good News Translation is an active transform of the Greek passive structure they will be heard with the subject (God) explicitly expressed. When used of prayer the verb “hear” means “answer.” Therefore “God will hear them” means “God will answer their prayers.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “They think that they can get something from God.” This can also be “They think that God will pay attention to their prayers” or “They think that God will give them what they pray for.”

For their many words refers specifically to prayer, and so Good News Translation has “because their prayers are long.” New American Bible renders “by the sheer multiplication of words.” New English Bible restructures entirely: “who imagine that the more they say the more likely they are to be heard.” Barclay translates “Their idea is that God will hear their prayers because of their length.” Translators may also render for their many words as “because they said many words when they prayed” or “because they prayed for such a long time.” Or they may well have “they imagine that using so many words will make God give them what they pray for.”

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 .