serve

The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that is typically translated in English as “serve,” “minister,” “walk with,” or “service” is translated in Igede as myị ẹrụ or “agree with message (of the one you’re serving).” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)

In Quetzaltepec Mixe, “serve” is translated as “obey.” (Source: Robert Bascom)

touch

The Greek that is translated as “touch” in English is translated in the German translation by Fridolin Stier (1989) as “(touch and) hold on to” (festhalten).

need to specify gender with genderless pronouns

In languages that do not have gender-specific pronouns like Muna, it can be important to explicitly specify the gender. In this case, see the mention of “woman in back-translation from Muna: “(When) s/he arrived in the house of Peter, Jesus saw the parent-in-law of Peter lying (and) s/he-had-a-fever. S/he held the hand of that woman, surprise! the fever immediately was-gone, and-then s/he stood-up and looked-after/served Jesus.”

The original: Nohato se lambuno Petrus, Yesus nowoha poniano Petrus nendole-ndole nosodoe. Anoa nointahamo limano hobhine na’a, gaha’a sodono lasao nopada, maka nowanu no’ondofao Yesus.

complete verse (Matthew 8:15)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 8:15:

  • Uma: “Yesus held her hand, she immediately got well. She then got up right away and served Yesus.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “He took the hand of the woman and she was healed. Then she got up and fed them.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Jesus placed his hand just on the arm of this woman, and she was immediately healed. And that woman got up and she cooked food to feed Jesus and company.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Jesus approached her and laid-his-hand-on her hand. Right then her fever was removed, and she got-up to feed him.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Jesus touched the hand/arm of that woman and her fever immediately dropped. She got up and made preparations to serve food to Jesus and company.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Jesus took the hand of the sick person to lift her up. At once she was healed of the fever she had. This woman then got up to fix something for the people to eat.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

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

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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, fure-rare-ru (触れられる) or “touch” is used.

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

Translation commentary on Matthew 8:15

He touched her hand: the Greek verb may mean either touched or “took hold of” (New American Bible “He took her by the hand”). Mark specifically states that Jesus took hold of her hand and raised her up (1.31), information that is not included by Matthew. Here in Matthew the verse can be translated “He grasped (or, held) her hand,” “He took hold of her hand,” or simply “He touched her hand.” There is no reason to specify which hand. The translators who cannot say “her hand” can always say “one of her hands.”

As an immediate result of Jesus’ touching her hand, the fever left her, and she rose up and served him. Although the Greek does not have the adverb “at once” (New American Bible), the implication is that she got up immediately. Some translations have said “the fever left her then.”

Rose means that she “got up” or “got out of bed.”

Served may also be translated so as to focus upon the initiation of the action, as in Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, and New American Bible (“and began to wait on”). New English Bible has “and waited on….” Served means here “waited on,” “took care of his needs,” or even “served him food and drink.”

Matthew supplies him as the object of the verb served, but Mark gives “them” as its object. It is not legitimate to translate Matthew in light of Mark, and to give “them” as the object of the verb here, as does Living Bible.

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 .

SIL Translator’s Notes on Matthew 8:15

8:15a

So He touched her hand, and the fever left her: This sentence indicates that when Jesus touched the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law, she was miraculously healed. The clause the fever left her means that the sickness was gone and the woman’s body cooled and became normal again.

Here are some other ways to translate this sentence:

Jesus touched her hand, and the fever went away (God’s Word)
-or-
He touched her hand, and the fever ended/finished.
-or-
He touched her hand and immediately she became well.

8:15b

she got up and began to serve them: The phrase began to serve them means that the woman started to take care of Jesus’ and the others’ needs. This probably means that she began to serve food.

However, you should not say that she cooked a meal for Jesus. According to the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, Jesus healed this woman on the Sabbath. On that day, it was forbidden for women to cook. She gave him food that had already been prepared.

Here are some other ways to translate this sentence:

Then she got up and began to take care of Jesus.

-or-

Then she got up and served Jesus a meal. (Contemporary English Version)

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