In verses 16-17, the figurative language becomes even more marked. Paul draws a picture of a meeting of Jesus, first with those who have died and then with those who are still alive. The “place” of this meeting is the air (v. 17). In the Greek world view, this was a technical term for the middle level between the earth and the space in which the stars were thought to move, called “the ether.” It is not clear how far Paul shared this view of the world. He never uses the word “ether”; no one else in the New Testament uses the word “air.” When Paul uses “air,” it sometimes has a more general sense than it seems to have here. In this passage, the general picture is clear and can normally be translated without the help of cultural annotations. The dead are snatched up from the ground, and the Lord comes down from heaven to meet them in some “place” between. Expressions of space and time need not be understood literally, but they should be taken seriously in translation.
These central events are accompanied by others. The shout of command translates a single word which may also have the more general meaning of a loud cry. “It belongs to the language of sailors, hunters and jockeys” (Rigaux). It is not clear from the text who is shouting. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch makes it clear that it is God, and this makes good sense for receptor languages which prefer or require an explicit statement about the agent. Similarly, the text does not state explicitly that it is God who blows the trumpet, though this may be implied. The text states only that the trumpet belongs to God.
A literal translation of Good News Translation would be very difficult in some languages, since in them one cannot speak of shouting a command without indicating who is the agent. Furthermore, placing the phrase the shout of command immediately before the archangel’s voice might imply that it is the archangel who does the shouting. The closest equivalent in some languages is simply “God will shout a command, the archangel will speak, and people will hear God’s trumpet.” It is possible in some instances to avoid indicating the agent by introducing the sounds by the phrase “people will hear,” for example, “people will hear a loud command, the voice of the archangel, and God’s trumpet.”
Since in verse 17 it says that the believers will meet the Lord in the air, it would be wrong to translate “the Lord himself will come down” in such a way as to imply that he will come down to the surface of the earth. It is simply that “the Lord will come down out of heaven.” The translation should not specify precisely how far down he comes, though in some languages it may be useful, in order to avoid other complications, to say “will come down from heaven into the air.”
Those who have died believing in Christ is literally “the dead in Christ.” The metaphor of sleep, used in verses 13 and 15, is replaced here by the normal literal expression. The text does not focus on the fact of their having believed in Christ at the moment of death, for after death also they are “in Christ.” Paul simply means “dead Christians,” “the Christian dead.” It is most natural to connect “in Christ” with “those who have died.” The alternative construction, “those who have died rise in Christ first,” is much less likely. Throughout this passage, Paul is thinking only of Christians who have died. Good News Translation‘s to life is implied in the text. These words remind us of the literal meaning behind the metaphor of rising.
For some of the problems involved in translating who have died believing in Christ, see the note on verse 4.14.
The phrase will rise to life must be translated in many languages as simply “come back to life” or “live again.”
The temporal expression first implies a comparison, and this is brought out clearly in the beginning of verse 17, but in some languages the temporal relation is better expressed by a transitional alone, such as “then,” for example, “those believers in Christ who have died will come back to life, and then we who are living at that time….”
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .