Sabbath study, xvi: a few notes on the ongoing Bible translation project

(non-comprehensive, and in no particular order)

Be diligent to present thyself approved to God—a workman irreproachable, rightly dividing the word of the truth. —II Timothy 2:15

I: variants are tricky to render precisely

Of crucially pertinent value to this translation endeavor is of course rendering each and every word as precisely reflective of the original textual meaning as possible. In the Biblical Hebrew (and also Aramaic?) text of the Old Testament, countless verbs encompass an array of tense variants (in a nutshell, think of it as past, present, or future, although the specifics are apparently defined somewhat differently), and the problem with relying on standard concordance dictionaries is that the mainstream numerology reckoning flattens all the variants into the definition of the “primary” form of the word.

For instance, “H-1961” is the lexical number used to denote and mark all the countless variants of the word הָיָה (hayah), even though the differing variants carry different specific connotations, whether of varying grammatical gender associations (masculine, feminine, or neuter), or of different tense variants, or even whether the word is “exist” or “pass.” This commonly used term in the Hebrew Bible as hayah means essentially “come to exist!” (with a translated exclamation mark to denote its emphatic orientation), and upon closer consideration, it came to my realization that whenever the original Hebrew explicitly uses the phrase “yah” (in this case, יָה) apart from the context of directly stating the name of Jehovah or in Hebrew names reflective of God’s name, the plain translation would be “exist,” since the very name Jehovah in the Biblical Hebrew is associated with the root concept of existence. By contrast, בֵין (hayu) is likely meant to be translated as “come to pass!” because it lacks the direct “yah” marker that would translate to “exist.” The standard lexical concordance unfortunately fails to properly differentiate between even these two words and instead assigns them both into the same category.

Now, determining the singular or plural form of a noun is far more straightforward, because the concordance listings for a noun—with both singular and plural variants—usually lists the singular one as the “primary” word. If a variant, relative to that “primary” word, contains a suffixed ים (-im), then it is plural, and specifically in the numerical context it means “two” if there are no numbers indicated before it. For instance, the genealogies of Shem states that the patriarch lived “years” (שְׁנָתַיִם: sh’natayim) after the flood and begat Arphaxad¹—while the literal translation would simply be years, the implication is two years. And in general, a suffixed י (-iy), relative to the “normal” singular form, appears to indicate plurality.

II: word-for-word literalness requires advanced vocabulary adjustments

Particularly in the case of verbs, it became evident very quickly that the “standard” vernacular of English—especially that used in the present era—is incredibly dumbed down and stripped of linguistic sophistication. In many instances, properly rendering the Biblical Hebrew terms straightforwardly into English necessitates—at least in the context of preserving a general “translate into one English word for every one Hebrew word” principle—an invocation of older Latin stylistic methodology, often either from an Old French or Germanic linguistic tradition, in order to restore the concise meaning of the original Hebrew text into the translated western English tongue.

For instance, where the standard translations render the Biblical Hebrew verb פָרָה (parah) as “be fruitful” (two words), a more concise phrasing would be to shorten into one word: “fructify.” This usage of the “-ify” suffix borrows from the Old French term “fructifiier” and the Late Latin “fructificare” and encapsulates the verb form as one single word just about perfectly in order to create a 1-to-1 translation key from the Semitic Biblical Hebrew into a western Latin-rooted English.

Not all instances require particularly “atavistic” invocations, just a restoration of proper vocabulary grasp. For instance, גָּדַל (gadal) would be properly translated into English as “magnify” to encapsulate—in one word—the concept of, “to enlarge, to make great, to make exalted [oneself or something/someone else].” Whereas both the KJV and modern translations inconsistently translate this term depending on the specific context to expediently emphasize the implied specificity of local contexts outright, the baseline literal translation would simply be “magnify” (unless anyone can think of a better and more precise universal word to translate gadal into).

In another major category of verb translations, there is apparently an Old Germanic technique of the western Latin linguistic umbrella that can be applied here to translate the Semitic Hebrew concisely: when a single Hebrew verb is translated into two English verbs, sometimes those two verbs can be switched in ordering and then merged into a single word, i.e. the term מָלֵא (malay), instead of being translated into the standard “fill up,” can rather be shortened into “upfill”; likewise, the term יָצָא (yotze), rather than being translated into two words as “go forth,” can instead be translated simply as “forthgo.”

III: ‘inventing’ new English words and their accompanied definitions is sometimes necessary

Unfortunately, the western English tongue does not always contain single words that by themselves correspond 1-to-1 with the linguistic depth of the ancient Semitic Biblical Hebrew. For instance, look at how inconsistently the word nacham is translated by both the KJV and modern translations! Depending on the specific implied local context, it can specifically refer to resting from [something], repenting/regretting over [something], changing one’s mind over [something], and/or pitying over [something]. If William Tyndale could validly coin the word atonement, then why not coin a new definition in English (if this term indeed has never been used before), say, “sorrify,” so as to carry a universal connotation of “being sorry over [something],” in order to properly encapsulate the Hebrew word’s applicable meanings?

IV: even the ‘untranslated particle’ must be properly and consistently translated!

Note how the standard concordances treat this very particular Biblical Hebrew word that appears over and over—according to Hebrew Word Study:

 #0853 אֵת ‘eth {ayth}

 apparent contracted from H0226 in the demonstrative sense of
    entity; TWOT - 186; untranslated particle

Similarly, the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon states:

 1) sign of the definite direct object, not translated in English
    but generally preceding and indicating the accusative

And of course, Strong’s Concordance:

Apparently contracted from H0226 in the demonstrative sense of entity; properly self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely):—(As such unrepresented in English.)

As these standard concordance listings reveal, the Hebrew word אֵת (eth) more or less signifies a referential emphasis to the subject it is attached to, and carries the connotation of “self.” In a nutshell, it very likely would be rendered consistently as “selfsame.” While at face value it appears redundant, this word indeed shows up in the original Biblical Hebrew text and obviously doesn’t appear there as a superficial decoration lacking significant reason—if it is there in the original, it should be properly and consistently translated as the text plainly is meant to be read.

V: shared roots

One crucial principle to generally—if not outright always—retain would be of course to preserve linguistic roots within the variants of a particular word. The very large bulk (if not all?) of standard English translations of the Bible flatten these nuances, for instance the verse in Daniel pertaining to the prophecy of the little horn magnifying toward the south, toward the “east” (of course, the Hebrew word here does not mean “east” in the most generic sense, but more specifically “sunrise-abode,” and therefore means “east” by implication), and toward the “pleasant”/“glorious”/“beautiful” [land].² The underlying Biblical Hebrew word for this adjective is צֶּבִי (ts’biy), which principally at its root is connotated specifically to the gazelle animal. Literally, in adjective form, it would translate to “roebuckful,” or better yet, “gazelleful.” In reference to the land of Judea (part of what we know geographically as the comprisal of Palestine), it by implication means “beauteous” or “pleasant” albeit principally and literally means “of, or pertaining to the features of a gazelle.” The very point of the Biblical Hebrew terminology is that a particular single word can carry multifaceted possible implications depending on the exact context it is used in, and that the reader must be spiritually furnished and equipped to remember what they read elsewhere and already to grasp the harmonious parallel witnesses within and between the testaments.

VI: the two key interjections

In a nutshell, the shorter emphatic interjection הֵן (hen) would translate to “lo!” while its longer counterpart הִנֵּה (hineh) would translate to “behold!” Standard translations, unfortunately, flatten this distinction, if not outright failing to render them consistently. In the QBible Masoretic Text parallel between the MT and KJV, there are numerous instances where the H-2005 הֵן (hen) is mistakenly identified in the interlinear as the H-2009 הִנֵּה (hineh) in the instances when the shorter emphatic interjection is paired with the suffix נִי (-niy), the combined הִנְנִי superficially resembling הִנֵּה hineh and thereby misidentified as hineh.

In reality, when the shorter interjection is paired with that suffix as the combined phrase הִנְנִי (hen’niy), it does not mean “behold!” but rather more or less, “lo! I…” because the suffix נִי (-niy)—anyone is welcome to correct me if I’m mistaken—corresponds to the first-person pronoun. The fact that the QBible interlinear mistakenly identifies H-2005 as H-2009 demonstrates that not even the interlinear interpretation of the translation is 100% reliable—one must consult the original meaning, not how it is simplistically interpreted and reductionally flattened.

VII: keep bracketed supplications as conservatively limited as possible

When the translation project inevitably requires supplied text not directly found in the original Biblical Hebrew, the slogan “less is more” holds true here. In both the KJV and modern translations, countless words are supplied that are not in the original text, sometimes not only lacking the italics/brackets to denote artificial translator insertions, but also going beyond the utmost basic grammatical markers to the point of inserting specific verbs and/or nouns.

In large part, usually the only (at least the most commonly recurring) artificial word supplications into the English translation of the Semitic Hebrew text require a pair of article + preposition in order to fill in the gap when retaining the Hebraic word ordering for consistency sake. (for the article, either the definite article, a.k.a. the word “the,” or an indefinite article, a.k.a. “a”/“an”; and for the preposition, typically—if not always—the word “of”)

For instance, the third sentence/phrase in Genesis literally would read, without supplications, “and Spirit God fluttered upon face the water.”³ That literal reading would of course be grammatically awkward for the average English-fluent person. The ostensibly implied meaning, without supplications, would require altering the word ordering into: “and God’s Spirit fluttered upon the water’s face.” However, because a consistently faithful translation ought to emphasize retaining the original Hebraic word ordering, this means that article/preposition pairs must be appended for grammatical flow in the translated English tongue, a.k.a. into: “and [the] Spirit [of] God fluttered upon [the] face [of] the water.”

VIII: the word of God teaches the student who studies it

Most importantly, it is 100% crucial for those diligently seeking an understanding of God’s inspired scriptures to bear in mind always that they have no heavenly wisdom of their own that can be contrived from their own sinful, imperfect, mortal purposing to teach, and that the only perfect doctrine that one can teach is that which must be learned from out of seeking a genuine yearning to understand God’s word out of a self-abased pure heart, inquiring from the inside for doctrinal clarity taught by Jehovah’s Holy Spirit.

As a corollary, this translation project most definitely is NOT in any way meant to revolve around my own privately contrived interpretations as resolutely confident fact, as if I in any way whatsoever could plausibly provide the interpretation for God’s word from my own heart. My only individual role on this realm—in terms of the purposed orientation—is to function as an earthly messenger boy proclaiming a message inspired from the heaven, a.k.a. relaying a pre-ordained message as nothing more than a proxy communicator. And so, “my” effort to translate the Bible in the process of studying and improving the precision thereof is itself just as much a learning process for myself as it is for those listening to it—no one single person in God’s body of believers comprises the fullness of the body, but rather each comprises a component of the body that, unto its eventual completed fullness, matures unto a measure of the full stature of the Jesus, that no more should those seeking God out of a pure heart remain spiritual infants requiring milk and be led astray by the tossing spirits of serpentine deception any more, but rather that the completed body of effectual mutual communion may manifest true in love and increase in all things under the head that is the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, prepared as a completed body to inherit the covenantal promises declared to the prophets unto the end of the ages!

1. Gen. 11:10.

2. Dan. 8:9.

3. Gen. 1:2b. (v. 1:3 in my verse demarcation)