complete verse (Romans 2:28)

Following are a number of back-translations of Romans 2:28:

  • Uma: “Jews who are really God’s people, are not people who are Jews from their birth, nor those who have just had their physical bodies circumcised.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Who is really a real Yahudi? Not the person who has a sign on his body because he has been circumcised.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “For the true Jew is not only the Jew whose body was marked by means of his being circumcised; for true circumcision is not that marking of the body.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Because the true Jew, I mean to say, the true person of God, it is not the person who is like a Jew in appearance and in custom only but rather it is the person whose thoughts are right. The circumcision moreover that is valuable in God’s estimation, it is not the circumcision of part of the body but rather it is the removal of evil from a person’s mind which is the work of the Spirit of God, not the work of the written law. The person who is like this, even though his companions don’t praise him, God praises him nonetheless.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “It is said that the Jew is God’s people. But it is not true that one is God’s people just because he was born of Jews or has been marked in his body like the Jews have the mark of circumcision.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

circumcise, circumcision

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The Hebrew and Greek terms that are translated as “circumcise” or “circumcision” in English (originally meaning of English term: “to cut around”) are (back-) translated in various ways:

  • Chimborazo Highland Quichua: “cut the flesh”
  • San Miguel El Grande Mixtec, Navajo (Dinė): “cut around”
  • Javanese: “clip-away”
  • Uab Meto: “pinch and cut” (usually shortened to “cut”)
  • North Alaskan Inupiatun, Western Highland Purepecha: “put the mark”
  • Tetelcingo Nahuatl: “put the mark in the body showing that they belong to God” (or: “that they have a covenant with God”)
  • Indonesian: disunat — “undergo sunat” (sunat is derived from Arabic “sunnah (سنة)” — “(religious) way (of life)”)
  • Ekari: “cut the end of the member for which one fears shame” (in Gen. 17:10) (but typically: “the cutting custom”) (source for this and above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • Hiri Motu: “cut the skin” (source: Deibler / Taylor 1977, p. 1079)
  • Garifuna: “cut off part of that which covers where one urinates”
  • Bribri: “cut the soft” (source for this and the one above: Ronald Ross)
  • Amele: deweg cagu qoc — “cut the body” (source: John Roberts)
  • Eastern Highland Otomi: “cut the flesh of the sons like Moses taught” (source: Ronald D. Olson in Notes on Translation January, 1968, p. 15ff.)
  • Newari: “put the sign in one’s body” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Central Mazahua: “sign in his flesh”
  • Hopi: “being cut in a circle in his body” (source for this and above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • Mandarin Chinese: gēlǐ (割礼 / 割禮) or “rite of cutting” (Protestant); gēsǔn (割损 / 割損) or “cut + loss” (Catholic) (Source: Zetzsche)
  • Tibetan: mdun lpags gcod (མདུན་​ལྤགས་​གཅོད།), lit. “fore + skin + cut” (source: gSungrab website )
  • Kutu: “enter the cloth (=undergarments)” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Circumcision .

Translation commentary on Romans 2:28 – 2:29

The Greek of these two verses is elliptical (that is, certain elements in the sentences must be supplied by the reader), but the Good News Translation rendering captures the meaning that is assumed by most translators and commentators. However, there is one clause which is interpreted differently by a number of exegetes: which is the work of God’s Spirit, not of the written Law. In Romans 7.6 and 2 Corinthians 3.6 similar expressions occur, and in both of these passages it is agreed that the reference is to the Holy Spirit. But in the present passage a number of translations take Paul’s expression (literally “in spirit not letter”) to mean “spiritual and not literal” (so Revised Standard Version, Moffatt, An American Translation*). The Jerusalem Bible seems also to go in this direction with its rendering: “something not of the letter but of the spirit.” The New English Bible agrees with the Good News Translation in its interpretation: “directed not by written precepts but by the Spirit.”

The transitional phrase after all introduces a conclusion and may be rendered in some languages as “in conclusion,” “all this means that…,” or “all that has been said adds up to…”

The initial question, who is a real Jew, truly circumcised?, must in many languages be changed into a statement. The equivalent may be “a man who seems to be a real Jew may not be one,” “not everyone is a Jew who appears to be a Jew,” “not all are Jews whom people think are Jews.” Another equivalent may be “being circumcised does not really make a person a Jew” or “if a person is circumcised this does not mean that he is really a Jew.” The second sentence in verse 28 may likewise need to be semantically restructured as “a man is not a Jew just because he has received cutting in his body” or “by being circumcised a man does not necessarily become a Jew.”

The transitional particle rather beginning verse 29 is particularly important and may be emphasized in some languages as “quite the contrary,” “in contrast with this,” or even “but indeed.”

A Jew on the inside may be rendered in some languages as “a Jew in his heart” or “a Jew in his inside being.”

The clause whose heart has been circumcised is particularly difficult to render. One cannot usually speak of “cutting the skin of the heart.” In fact in some languages one must simply drop the semantic association between “heart” and “circumcised.” An equivalent may be “whose heart has been prepared” or “whose heart has been marked as belonging to God.”

The conjunction which, introducing the clause which is the work of God’s Spirit, not of the written Law, refers specifically to the “circumcision of the heart,” but it likewise refers to the total concept of “being a true Jew.” Since this final clause is primarily related to the preceding clause as a causative, it is sometimes necessary to make a separate sentence of this last portion of the first sentence of verse 29—for example, “God’s Spirit is the one which causes this, the written Law does not cause it.” If the pronouns “this” and “it” are not specific enough, it may be possible to say: “God’s Spirit causes a person to be a Jew on the inside; the words of the Law do not cause this.” In some instances an inversion of the order may be appropriate—for example, “on the other hand, the real Jew is the man who is a Jew on the inside—a person who has been made a Jew by God’s Spirit and not by any written Law, since being a real Jew is a matter of the heart and not of the body.” By contrasting “heart” and “body,” one can indicate clearly the significance of “circumcised of heart.”

On the other hand, if, as suggested above, the Greek expression which is literally “in Spirit not letter” is to be taken to mean “spiritually and not literally,” this reference to circumcision can be rendered as “this is not something done to his body but something which happens to his heart” or “this does not mean a cutting of the body but a change in a person’s spirit.”

The phrase receives his praise is a kind of substitute passive, since it is God who is the agent of such praise. An active equivalent may be “it is God who praises such a man; it is not other men who do so.” An alternative form may be “praise for such a man comes from God and not from men.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .