elder (of the community)

The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that is typically translated as “elders” in English is translated in the Danish Bibelen 2020 as folkets ledere or “leaders of the people.”

Martin Ehrensvärd, one of the translators, explains: “The term ‘elder’ turned out to pose a particularly thorny problem. In traditional bibles, you can find elders all of over the place and they never pose a problem for a translator, they are just always elders. But how to find a contemporary term for this semi-official, complex position? This may have been our longest-standing problem. A couple of times we thought we had the solution, and then implemented it throughout the texts, only to find out that it didn’t work. Like when we used city council or village council, depending on the context. In the end we felt that the texts didn’t work with such official terms, and throughout the years in the desert, these terms didn’t make much sense. Other suggestions were ‘the eldest and wisest’, ‘the respected citizens’, ‘the Israelites with a certain position in society’, ‘the elder council’ –- and let me point out that these terms sound better in Danish than in English (‘de fremtrædende borgere,’ ‘de mest fremtrædende israelitter,’ ‘alle israelitter med en vis position,’ ‘de ældste og de klogeste,’ ‘ældsterådet’). In the end we just said ‘leaders of the people.’ After a lot of hand-wringing, it turned out that we actually found a term that worked well. So, we had to give up conveying the fact that they were old, but the most important point is that they were community leaders.” (Source: Ehrensvärd in HIPHIL Novum 8/2023, p. 81ff. )

The German das Buch translation by Roland Werner (publ. 2009-2022) translates likewise as “leader of the people” (Anführer des Volkes).

Translation commentary on Sirach 6:34

Stand in the assembly of the elders: The verb stand may be meant by the author in a literal sense, but the point is that the reader is advised to be in the company of the elders. Assembly is literally “multitude.” Good News Translation takes the term elders to mean literally “old people.” If we grant that, Good News Translation offers a good translation. However, elders usually refers to people in authority, and while they might actually be older than most people in the community, it is their authority that is referred to. The phrase assembly of the elders appears again in 7.14, where it is used in a context involving prayer. This would suggest that here we are thinking of the elders of the synagogue, especially since in the next verse ben Sira mentions religious discourse. We would suggest rendering this line as “Go where the community leaders gather” or “You should spend a lot of your time in the company of community leaders [or, people in authority].”

Who is wise? Cleave to him: This means to find someone whose wisdom you respect, and stay with him, keep his friendship, always be ready to learn from him. Both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation assume that this wise person is a male by using the pronoun him. We may be sure this is what ben Sira was thinking of—he did not have great respect for women—but the language here can be phrased inclusively by saying “Stay close to people who are wise.”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Sirach. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.