inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (Rom. 7:6)

Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)

The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).

For this verse, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the writer of the letter and the readers).

Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.

complete verse (Romans 7:6)

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

  • Uma: “But now, we are released from the Lord’s Law that bound us formerly, because we died together with Kristus. So we no longer follow the old way: we no longer follow written laws. Now we follow a new way: we follow God’s will from the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “But now the law has no authority over us (incl.) because it is as if we (incl.) have now died and we (incl.) have been freed from sin. Our (incl.) following God is different now. It is not like in past times that we (incl.) ought to/must only follow/obey everything written in the law. But now God’s Spirit makes our (incl.) livers new already and he helps us (incl.) to obey/follow God.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And when we came to believe in Jesus Christ, God set us free. And it’s no longer necessary that we obey the Law, for when Jesus died, it’s as if we also died and we have been set free from our slavery to sin and today there’s a new way for us to do what God wants because it’s by means of the help of the Holy Spirit and no longer by means of the old way which is obedience to the written Law.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “But now, because of our being included in Cristo’s death, we have been set-free from the law that enslaved us. Thus our serving God now is not based on our following the written law like what we did previously but rather it is based on the new way-of-life that comes from the Holy Spirit.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “But now is released the word of the law which rules us. Because now we make the judgment that we have died. Now anew we live in order that we do the work of God. The Holy Spirit gives us the desire to do the work of God; it is not that we do the work of God because we fear what the old law says.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

law

The Greek that is translated in English as “Law” or “law” is translated in Mairasi as oro nasinggiei or “prohibited things” (source: Enggavoter 2004) and in Noongar with a capitalized form of the term for “words” (Warrinya) (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).

In Yucateco the phrase that is used for “law” is “ordered-word” (for “commandment,” it is “spoken-word”) (source: Nida 1947, p. 198) and in Central Tarahumara it is “writing-command.” (wsource: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

See also teaching / law (of God) (Japanese honorifics).

Spirit (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-tama (御霊) or “Spirit (of God)” in the referenced verses.

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

See also Holy Spirit

Translation commentary on Romans 7:6

As mentioned earlier, verse 6 brings in the contrast between the “once” and the “now.”

We are free (the same verb used in verse 2) translates an aorist passive (literally “we were set free”), which points to a specific time in the past, perhaps to the act of confession at baptism. Again the understood agent of the passive voice is God, “God set us free.” In some languages this may be expressed as “God untied us from the Law” or even “God erased the Law as far as we were concerned.”

The pronoun, that which, refers to the Law, “to the Law which.” We died to that which once held us prisoners (that is, the Law) must be expressed in essentially the same way as in the second sentence of verse 4, that is, died, as far as the Law is concerned.

Held us prisoners may be rendered as “caused us to be prisoners,” “locked us up,” or “tied us up,” or, metaphorically, “put chains on us.”

In Greek this verse is one sentence, and the second sentence of the Good News Translation represents a clause which in Greek introduces the conclusion. The transition between these two sentences may be introduced by “as a result,” “hence,” or “therefore.”

The object of the verb serve is God: no longer do we serve (God). Paul now contrasts the two ways of rendering service to God. It may be that the compound phrase in the old way of a written law is not clear for the reader. It is perhaps better to take written law in apposition with the old way, and so to understand the phrase to mean “in the old way that was made possible for us by the written law.” The same may be said of the second phrase, in the new way of the Spirit; this may be rendered “in the new way made possible by the Spirit.” A few translations understand Spirit to refer to man’s own spirit (Jerusalem Bible “in the new spiritual way” and New American Bible “in the new spirit”), though most commentators understand it to be a reference to the Holy Spirit.

The relations between the term way and the corresponding expressions a written law and the Spirit must in some languages be made more explicit—for example, “the old way, that is, the way which the written law told us we should live.” The new way of the Spirit may be “the new way, that is, how the Spirit causes us to live.”

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 .