destroy

The Greek in Revelation 11:18 that is translated as “destroy” in English is rendered in Yapese as “untie the words of” and in Chichewa as “wiping from the ground.”

judge vs. condemn

The Greek terms krino and katakrino/katadikazo that are translated as “judge” and “condemn” respectively in English are translated with only one term in Kutu (tagusa). (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

See also do not condemn.

saint

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The Greek that is translated as “saint” in English is rendered into Highland Puebla Nahuatl as “one with a clean hearts,” into Northwestern Dinka as “one with a white hearts,” and into Western Kanjobal as “person of prayer.” (Source: Nida 1952, p. 146)

Other translations include:

complete verse (Revelation 11:18)

Following are a number of back-translations of Revelation 11:18:

  • Uma: “All the people who do not follow you (sing.), they are riled-up/all-out wanting to oppose you (sing.). But the time has come you (sing.) make appear your (sing.) anger to them. The time has come when you (sing.) judge the cases of people who have died. The time has come for you (sing.) to give gifts to you (sing.) slaves: to the prophets who carry your (sing.) Word, to people who submit to you (sing.), and to all the people who honor you (sing.), the important or the unimportant ones [lit., the ones with big or little lives]. The time has come for you (sing.) to punish people who wreck /make-evil the world.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “The people who don’t believe-obey you are very angry, because the time has come now for your wrath to come to them, and the time for you to judge the dead. The time has come when you will reward your servants, the prophets, and all people belonging to you, all who respect you, great and small equally. This is the time for destroying all those who destroyed in the world.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Your enemies were very angry with You, but the day for Your punishing them has arrived, and also the day for Your investigating the deeds of those already dead. It is now the time for Your rewarding Your servants the prophets and Your rewarding also all people who belong to You, whether their status is big or whether their status is small, everyone who respects You. This is also the time for You to destroy all people who have destroyed the earth.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Those who oppose you (sing.), extreme is their anger, but now, the time has arrived when-you (sing.) -will-punish them, because now is the time when-you (sing.) -will-judge all the dead. Now also is the time when-you (sing.) -will-recompense the prophets who serve you (sing.) and all your (sing.) people who esteem you (sing.), those who are low (i.e. poor, lacking influence) and also those who are high, while at-the-same-time you (sing.) destroy those who have destroyed people on the earth.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “The anger/hatred of those nations who don’t acknowledge you is really terrible. But well, the time has now been reached when you will now cause your anger to be comprehended. The time has been reached to judge/sentence the ones who have died, and to give rewards to the prophets who are your servants, and all your people, as many as have fear and respect for you, high/important blood and low-class/ordinary. Now really is the time when you will cause to suffer greatly those under the heavens who are causing suffering.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “The people who live in the world who reject your word were angry. But now has come the day when you also are angry. Concerning those who have died, now has come the time for you to judge them. Concerning your workers who have spoken for you, you will give them their wages. All of the people who are in your hand, little and big, all who reverence you, to all will you give their wages. Now has come the time that you finish the people who do damage here on earth with whatever evil they do.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
  • Chichewa (interconfessional translation, 1999): “Pagan people became angry, but the time has come to show your wrath, that is the time for judging the dead. The time has come for you to give a reward to your servants, the prophets, and to your people, that is all of them, the small ones and the great ones, who reverence your name. The time has come for you to destroy those who destroy this world.” (Source: Wendland 1998, p. 166)

prophet

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Eugene Nida wrote the following about the translation of the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek terms that are typically translated with “prophet” in English:

“The tendency in many translations is to use ‘to foretell the future’ for ‘prophesy,’ and ‘one who foretells the future’ for ‘prophet.’ This is not always a recommended usage, particularly if such expressions denote certain special native practices of spirit contact and control. It is true, of course, that prophets of the Bible did foretell the future, but this was not always their principal function. One essential significance of the Greek word prophētēs is ‘one who speaks forth,’ principally, of course, as a forth-teller of the Divine will. A translation such as ‘spokesman for God’ may often be employed profitably.” (1947, p. 234f.)

Following is a list of (back-) translations from other languages (click or tap for details):

  • San Blas Kuna: “one who speaks the voice of God”
  • Central Pame and Vai: “interpreter for God”
  • Kaqchikel, Navajo (Dinė), Yaka: “one who speaks for God”
  • Northern Grebo: “God’s town crier” (see more about this below)
  • Sapo: “God’s sent-word person”
  • Shipibo-Conibo, Ngäbere: “one who speaks God’s word”
  • Copainalá Zoque: “one who speaks-opens” (a compound meaning “one who discloses or reveals”)
  • Sierra Totonac: “one who causes them to know” (in the sense of “revealer”)
  • Batak Toba: “foreteller” (this and all the above acc. to Nida 1961, p. 7)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “one who is inspired of God” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Alekano: “the true man who descended from heaven” (source: Ellis Deibler in Notes on Translation June 1986, p. 36ff.)
  • Aguaruna: “teller of God’s word” (source: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125)
  • Ekari: “person who speaks under divine impulse”
  • Mandarin Chinese: 先知 xiānzhī — “one who foreknows” (or the 1946/1970 translation by Lü Zhenzhong: 神言人 shényánrén — “divine-word-man”)
  • Uab Meto: “holy spokesman” (source for this and two above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • Kouya: Lagɔɔ gbʋgbanyɔ — “the one who seeks God’s affairs” (source: Saunders, p. 269)
  • Kafa: “decide for God only” (source: Loren Bliese)
  • Martu Wangka: “sit true to God’s talk” (source: Carl Gross)
  • Eastern Highland Otomi: “word passer” (source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation November 1964, p. 1-22)
  • Obolo: ebi nriran: “one with power of divine revelation” (source: Enene Enene)
  • Mairasi: nonondoai nyan: “message proclaimer” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Highland Totonac: “speaker on God’s behalf”
  • Central Tarahumara: “God’s preacher” (source for this and above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • Coatlán Mixe: “God’s word-thrower”
  • Ayutla Mixtec: “one who talks as God’s representative”
  • Isthmus Mixe: “speaker for God” (source for this and two above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
  • Mezquital Otomi / Paasaal: “God’s messenger” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff. and Fabian N. Dapila in The Bible Translator 2024, p. 415ff.)
  • Noongar: Warda Marridjiny or “News Traveling” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Kutu: mtula ndagu or “one who gives the prediction of the past and the future” (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
  • Ebira: ọnịsẹ, a neologism that combines the prefix ọn for “a person” with ịsẹ for “prediction” (source: Scholz /Scholz 2015, p. 49)
  • French 1985 translation by Chouraqui: inspiré or “inspired one” (“someone in whom God has breathed [Latin: in + spiro]) (source: Watson 2023, p. 45)

In Ixcatlán Mazatec a term is used that specifically includes women. (Source: Robert Bascom)

About the translation into Northern Grebo:

“In some instances these spiritual terms result from adaptations reflecting the native life and culture. Among the Northern Grebo people of Liberia, a missionary wanted some adequate term for ‘prophet,’ and she was fully aware that the native word for ‘soothsayer’ or ‘diviner’ was no equivalent for the Biblical prophet who spoke forth for God. Of course, much of what the prophets said referred to the future, and though this was an essential part of much of their ministry, it was by no means all. The right word for the Gbeapo people would have to include something which would not only mean the foretelling of important events but the proclamation of truth as God’s representative among the people. At last the right word came; it was ‘God’s town-crier.’ Every morning and evening the official representative of the chief goes through the village crying out the news, delivering the orders of the chief, and announcing important coming events. ‘God’s town-crier’ would be the official representative of God, announcing to the people God’s doings, His commands, and His pronouncements for their salvation and well-being. For the Northern Grebo people the prophet is no weird person from forgotten times; he is as real as the human, moving message of the plowman Amos, who became God’s town-crier to a calloused people.” (source: Nida 1952, p. 20)

In American Sign Language it is a person who sees into the future:


“Prophet” in American Sign Language (source )

In British Sign Language it is is translated with a sign that depicts a message coming from God to a person (the upright finger) and then being passed on to others. (Source: Anna Smith)


“Prophet” in British Sign Language (source: Christian BSL, used with permission)

See also prophesy and prophesy / prophetic frenzy.

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: How to Recognize a Biblical Prophet .

See also seer.

addressing God

Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.

Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight

Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.

As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.

In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.

Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”

In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.

Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)

In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”

In Dutch, Afrikaans, Gronings, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.

See also formal pronoun: disciples addressing Jesus, female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.

name (of God) (Japanese honorifics)

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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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix mi- (御 or み) can be used, as in mi-na (御名) or “name (of God)” in the referenced verses.

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

Translation commentary on Revelation 11:18

The nations raged: this reflects the language of the Greek Septuagint version of Psa 2.1. Here The nations are “the Gentiles” (or, “the heathen”), people who do not worship the God of Israel. The Greek verb translated raged means “became very angry (or, furious)” and appears only here in Revelation. In certain languages raged will be expressed idiomatically; for example, “have very hot heart (or, liver).”

But thy wrath came: the Greek conjunction used here usually means “and” (so New International Version); Good News Translation has “because” (a possible meaning), but most translations have But. The Greek noun translated wrath is related to the verb translated raged, and a translation that can use the two related words is urged to do so. Here the abstract wrath stands not only for the emotion but for the expression of that emotion, as the rest of the verse shows. So something like “the time has come for you to show (or, express) your anger” represents the meaning of the Greek. New Jerusalem Bible has “and now has come the time for your retribution.”

The time for the dead to be judged: it may be better to use the active voice, “the time has come for you to judge all who have died.” After the dead are raised to life, they will be judged by God (see 20.11-13). Here the word translated “time” can be represented by “the right time,” “the right occasion.” For judge see 6.10. An alternative translation model for the first part of this verse is as follows:

• Those who do not believe in you (or, the heathen) were having hot hearts; but the time for you to become angry has come; the right time has come for you to judge all people who have died.

For rewarding thy servants, the prophets and saints: the Revised Standard Version punctuation is somewhat odd; it seems to make the prophets and saints an apposition to thy servants, that is, the prophets and saints are the ones to whom thy servants refers (thus also New Revised Standard Version, in poetic form). This does not seem right. It seems more reasonable that the prophets defines those who are thy servants, that is, “your servants, the prophets” (see 10.7), and that saints goes with those who fear thy name. For saints see 5.8. Rewarding here means that God will “pay back,” “recompense,” “do good things to,” these people for what they have done. For the translation of servants see 1.1.

Those who fear thy name: the biblical expression “to fear God’s name” means to respect God, to honor God, to have reverence for God. Good News Translation places “all who have reverence for you” in apposition with “all your people” (also Moffatt and An American Translation); but it is possible that “all who have reverence for you” is another group, larger than “all your people.” But the Good News Bible rendering seems preferable: God’s people are further defined as those who honor and worship him in prayer and obedience to him.

Both small and great: this can be translated “the weak and the powerful,” “the lowly and the famous.” Most languages have terms that distinguish between the powerful and the powerless (see also 13.16; 19.5, 18; 20.12).

For destroying the destroyers of the earth: these are specifically the pagan rulers of the Roman Empire. Both the verb destroying and the noun destroyers may mean “for corrupting the corrupters” (see 19.2); but the sense of destroying fits the context here better (compare 8.9). A translation must not give the impression that the writer is talking about people who destroy the environment, making the earth unfit for human habitation; he is talking about those who mistreat and kill people. Destroying may be expressed as “killing,” “wiping out,” or even “wiping from the ground” (Yapese). So one may translate this final clause as “The time has come for you to wipe out (or, destroy) all those who kill people on earth.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Revelation to John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .