The Greek and Hebrew hat is translated as “purple” in English is translated as “blue-red” in Ojitlán Chinantec (source: M. Larson in Notes on Translation 1970, p. 1ff.) and in Elhomwe (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext). In Silimo it is translated with a local reference: “the colour of the wipegen berry” (source: Buzz and Myrna Maxey ).
“The Kasua people of Western Province have no word for the color purple. They have words for many other colors: black, red, white, yellow, green, and blue, but not for the color of royalty.
“About nine New Testament passages mention people placing a purple robe on Jesus. The Kasua translation team always wanted to use the word ‘red,’ or keyalo, to describe the robe. Tommy, one of the translation team helpers, disagreed because this is not historically accurate or signifies the royalty of Jesus.
“One of the main rules of translation is that the team must stick to the historical facts when they translate a passage. If they don’t, then how can the readers trust what they’re reading is true? Other questions about truth could bubble in the reader’s minds about the Scriptures. For this reason, Tommy was not willing to change the word purple. So the team hung up the problem, hoping to revisit it later with more inspiration.
“God did not disappoint.
“Years later, Tommy hiked with some of the men near their village. They saw a tree that possessed bulbous growths growing on the side of it like fruit. These growths were ‘the most beautiful color of purple I’d ever seen,’ explained Tommy.
“’What is the name of this tree?’ Tommy asked the men.
“’This is an Okani tree,’ they replied.
“Tommy suggested, ‘Why don’t you, in those passages where we’ve been struggling to translate the color purple, use ‘they put a robe on Jesus the color of the fruit of the Okani tree’?
“’Yeah. We know exactly what color that is,’ the men said enthusiastically.
“Everyone in their village would also visualize this phrase accurately, as the Okani tree is the only tree in that area that produces this kind of purple growth. So now, among the Kasua people, in his royal purple robe, Jesus is shown to be the king that he is.”
In Numbers 4:13, Gbaya uses the ideophone soi-soi to emphasize the purple color. Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation and soi-soi designates something that has a red or purple color, or a thing with a clear or clean appearance. (Source: Philip Noss)
In Gbaya, the notion of scarlet is emphasized with yúŋgú-yúŋgú, an ideophone that describes a red like the sun when it’s rising and setting.
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
Following are a number of back-translations of Revelation 18:16:
Uma: “they say: ‘How-sad! How-sad for that big village over there! Usually the Babel people wear fine clothes, white ones, bright red ones and purple [lit., grayish likenew mango leaves] ones. Usually they are decorated with gold, gems [ring eyes], andpearls.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “They say, ‘Allo. It is all over (lit. no longer becoming). What a pity. That famous city was like a woman dressed in expensive purple and red clothes and her body was covered with jewelry and precious stones and pearls.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “They say, ‘How great the city will be missed! The inhabitants there were clothed in expensive cloth, white, red and purple. They decorated their bodies with gold, expensive stones and pearls.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “saying, ‘Oh how-awful (expression of sympathy)! Extremely to-be-pitied is that famous (lit. newsed) city! Because previously, the inhabitants there dressed in expensive (garments) which were white and blue and red. They were extremely decorated-all-over with gold, valuable stones and pearls.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “What they will say is, ‘Alas, this really is extremely hard! Gooseflesh-causing is this which has now happened to this famous city. In the past, the clothes were really ornate and the body decorations dazzling of the people from there. For as for their clothes, they were first-class cloth, and those dyed dark-blue/purple and red. And as for their body decorations, they were gold and expensive mined stones and far-from-ordinary beads.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “They will say: ‘Pity the city. It was like a woman who wore good clothing. Who wore clothing of purple. Who wore clothing of red, who had ornaments of gold with little beautiful stones, and pearls.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
Flax Linum usitatissimum, from which linen cloth is made, was cultivated in the Middle East, including Canaan, at least as early as 5000 B.C. A document from Gezer (in Israel) from around King Saul’s time (1000 B.C.) refers to the cultivation of flax and states that flax and wool were the main materials for making cloth. According to Joshua 2:6, the Israelite spies were hidden under flax stalks by Rahab. Flax was grown extensively in Egypt and made into cloth and mats.
Pesheth and pishtah are probably the original Hebrew words for flax, if indeed the plant was domesticated in the Holy Land, as Zohary (Plants of the Bible. Cambridge University Press, 1982) proposes. They may be related to the word pashat, meaning “to strip off” or “to flay,” or to the word pasas, meaning “to disintegrate.” Pesheth and pishtah are used twenty times in the Old Testament, twice referring clearly to the plant itself (Exodus 9:31; Joshua 2:6). Other references are to the processed flax (Judges 15:14 et al.). A few cases refer to finished products, namely wicks (Isaiah 42:3 et al.), cords (Ezekiel 40:3), and items of clothing (Jeremiah 13:1 et al.).
It is likely that the Hebrews acquired the word shesh from the Egyptians during their sojourn in Egypt, since flax was cultivated there also. The Egyptian word for flax was shent (via shen-suten). Shesh is used thirty-eight times in the Old Testament: for the material that Pharaoh put on Joseph, for the Tabernacle curtains and hangings in Exodus, for the ephod, and for the priests’ tunics. The wise woman of Proverbs 31:22 wears it. In Ezekiel 16:10 et al. it is paired with silk, and in Ezekiel 27:7 “shesh from Egypt” is spoken of as material for the sails of ships.
Several references to linen use the Hebrew word bad. In Exodus 28:42 the priests’ underwear are made from bad, and it is used thereafter in Leviticus to describe various items of clothing—coat, breeches, girdle, and turban. It turns up again in Samuel’s and King David’s “ephods” and then again in Ezekiel and Daniel, where we see visions of “a man clothed in bad.”
Linen is referred by the Hebrew word buts in 1‑2 Chronicles, Esther, and Ezekiel, where the robes of the Temple choir, kings, and rich men are described.
The Old Testament has some references to the Hebrew word sadin (“linen garment”): Judges 14:12 (Samson promises them to his opponents), Proverbs 31:24 (the wise woman makes them), and Isaiah 3:23 (the rich women of Jerusalem wear them). The Septuagint uses the Greek word bussos or sindōn in these passages.
The Hebrew word ’etun occurs only in Proverbs 7:16, where it refers to a linen bedspread from Egypt.
In the New Testament there are three primary Greek words for linen: linon/linous, sindōn, and othonē/othonion. Linon is used to refer to garments of the angels in Revelation 15:6 as well as to the “smoldering wick” in Matthew 12:20. The synoptic Gospel writers refer to the linen cloth that Joseph and Nicodemus used to wrap Jesus’ body as a sindōn. Mark uses the same word to refer to the cloth that was worn by the unidentified young man at the time of Jesus’ arrest (Mark 14:51f.). John uses a different Greek word for Jesus’ burial cloths: othonion.
The rich man referred to in the Lazarus story (Luke 16:19) is clothed in “fine linen” (bussos). The Greek word bussos is the root word for bussinos, which refers to tunics, robes and turbans made from linen fabric (Revelation 18:12 et al.).
Flax is a little taller than a sesame plant, about a meter (3 feet) tall. Its leaves are narrow and the flowers are bright blue with five petals. The seed capsule contains oil that is used for cooking and also for thinning paint. After flax ripens, the plants are uprooted and the stalks are left to dry for a while. The stalks are then soaked, dried, and beaten to separate the fibers, which are then combed and woven into cloth.
Linen cloth was relatively costly in Israel, and being light and easy to dye it was highly valued. Their priests wore linen garments to combat sweating (see Ezekiel 44:18). They had to remove these holy garments when they left the Temple, “lest they communicate holiness to the people” (Ezekiel 44:19). The high esteem given to linen by the Jews is shown also by the fact that they used it for burying the dead, and we are told that the Dead Sea Scrolls were wrapped in linen cloths. However, the flax plant was special in other ways. The crushed stalks of flax plants were also used for making rope and lamp wicks. The seed was used for oil.
Today flax is raised more for the oil that comes from the seeds (called linseed oil) than for the fibers, although flax stalks are also made into special kinds of paper.
Metaphorical uses of flax are relatively few in the Bible, and all suggest the weakness of the material. In Judges 15:14 flax fiber is used as a simile for Samson’s fetters (they snapped like linen thread). Isaiah 42:3 says the Messiah will be gentle with weak people (“a dimly burning wick [pishtah] he will not quench”), in contrast to the typical iron-fisted tyrants of the day. Isaiah 43:17 describes the fate of the Babylonian enemies: they will be snuffed out “like a wick [pishtah].”
Linen cloth (or other cloth with a similar name) is surprisingly widespread. Cloth merchants in the translators’ area may know it under a trade language name, and if so, that can be used.In some places it is used only for burying people. In that case, if it is used in translation at all, the difference in culture should be explained in a footnote. Since linen is bleached white, a generic phrase such as “beautiful white cloth” can be considered in many places. In the three metaphorical passages mentioned above, an appropriate cultural image may be substituted, or an adverb expressing weakness or fragility.
The translator should consider translating the three successive messages of doom (verses 16-17a, 19b-20, 21b-24) in poetic form (see Section F of the introduction, “Translating the Revelation to John,” pages 6 and following).
Alas, alas for the great city: see verse 10.
Clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet: see verse 12.
Bedecked with gold, with jewels, and with pearls: see 17.4.
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 .
saying: “Woe, woe to the great city, clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet…”: These words were probably spoken about Babylon, rather than to her. She is not addressed by the pronoun “you” in the following verses. For example:
saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was clothed in fine linen… (New American Standard Bible)
Woe, woe to the great city: The words naming the thing spoken about, the great city, are in the middle of the sentence. Many languages must have the great city first for a natural sentence and place the words Woe, woe at the end of the sentence. Also, many languages must locate the description of that thing immediately after naming the thing spoken to. For example:
O great city, clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls—woe, woe!
18:16a
saying: The Berean Standard Bible represents the Greek literally here. Some other English versions use the phrase “and cry out” to indicate the meaning of “speak with much emotion.” That meaning is implied here. See how you translated the word “cry” in 18:10.
Woe, woe: The word Woe is repeated to emphasize its meaning. But in some languages it is more natural not to repeat the word. If that is true in your language, you should emphasize the woe in a natural way. For example:
Great woe ⌊indeed⌋ !
See how you translated this phrase in 18:10.
the great city: The Berean Standard Bible literally represents the Greek here. Some English versions add the word “O” (as in the New International Version (1984)). In English it probably indicates a formal address, as speaking to someone of high status. Some English versions, like the Berean Standard Bible, do not add this word.
great: The city of Babylon is called great because at that time it was an important and famous city. It had a vast empire and great influence. See how you translated this word in 18:2.
18:16b
clothed in fine linen: The merchants speak about Babylon as if that city is a woman clothed in fine linen. Earlier, John saw Babylon figuratively as a woman (17:1–18).
In some languages it is not natural to refer to a city as a woman. If that is true in your language, you may want to change this metaphor into a simile. For example:
⌊she was like a woman⌋ clothed in fine linen
fine linen: Here the word fine indicates that the linen was very good quality. See how you translated this phrase in 18:12.
purple and scarlet: This phrase refers to the colors of the cloth. Making purple and scarlet cloth was expensive at that time. For example:
expensive purple and scarlet clothing
See how you translated the words purple and scarlet in 18:12.
18:16c
adorned: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as adorned means “wearing.” A woman wore gold, precious stones and pearls in order to look beautiful. This word may refer to jewelry or to things fastened to the dress or both. Other ways to translate this word are:
decorated -or-
glittering with (New International Version)
See how you translated this word in 17:4.
gold and precious stones and pearls: See how you translated these words in 18:12.
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®).
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