31“You were looking, O king, and there appeared a great statue. That statue was huge, its brilliance extraordinary; it was standing before you, and its appearance was frightening.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Daniel 2:31:
Kupsabiny: “You looked around in a dream, oh king, and before you was a big shaped/formed thing (statue). That thing was glittering and terrified people.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “O Great King, when you were looking you saw a great, shining and terrifying image before you.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “‘Your (sing.) dream is this: You (sing.) saw a large statue standing in front of you (sing.). It was very bright, and frightening to-look-at.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “O King, in your vision you saw in front of you a huge and terrifying statue of a man. It was shining very brightly, and it was frightening and awesome.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Some languages do not have a concept of kingship and therefore no immediate equivalent for the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin that is translated as “king” in English. Here are some (back-) translations:
Ninia Yali: “big brother with the uplifted name” (source: Daud Soesilio in Noss 2007, p. 175)
Nyamwezi: mutemi: generic word for ruler, by specifying the city or nation it becomes clear what kind of ruler (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Ghomála’: Fo (“The word Fo refers to the paramount ruler in the kingdoms of West Cameroon. He holds administrative, political, and religious power over his own people, who are divided into two categories: princes (descendants of royalty) and servants (everyone else).” (Source: Michel Kenmogne in Theologizing in Context: An Example from the Study of a Ghomala’ Christian Hymn))
Faye Edgerton retells how the term in Navajo (Dinė) was determined:
“[This term was] easily expressed in the language of Biblical culture, which had kings and noblemen with their brilliant trappings and their position of honor and praise. But leadership among the Navajos is not accompanied by any such titles or distinctions of dress. Those most respected, especially in earlier days, were their headmen, who were the leaders in raids, and the shaman, who was able to serve the people by appealing for them to the gods, or by exorcising evil spirits. Neither of these made any outward show. Neither held his position by political intrigue or heredity. If the headman failed consistently in raids, he was superceded by a better warrior. If the shaman failed many times in his healing ceremonies, it was considered that he was making mistakes in the chants, or had lost favor with the gods, and another was sought. The term Navajos use for headman is derived from a verb meaning ‘to move the head from side to side as in making an oration.’ The headman must be a good orator, able to move the people to go to war, or to follow him in any important decision. This word is naat’áanii which now means ‘one who rules or bosses.’ It is employed now for a foreman or boss of any kind of labor, as well as for the chairman of the tribal council. So in order to show that the king is not just a common boss but the highest ruler, the word ‘aláahgo, which expresses the superlative degree, was put before naat’áanii, and so ‘aláahgo naat’áanii ‘anyone-more-than-being around-he-moves-his-head-the-one-who’ means ‘the highest ruler.’ Naat’áanii was used for governor as the context usually shows that the person was a ruler of a country or associated with kings.”
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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 Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme rare (られ) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, miteo-rare-ru (見ておられる) or “looking” is used.
You saw: this verb is repeated throughout the explanation of the dream (verses 34, 41, 43, and 45) and is a feature of the literary technique of the writer. Unless it is clumsy in the receptor language, the repetition should be retained.
O king: see verse 29.
And behold: the Aramaic interjection translated by these words in Revised Standard Version is omitted by most modern English versions. Some translators attempt to capture the effect of this element by the use of an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence (see Moffatt, for example). It is probably better left untranslated in most languages, unless there is a natural way of expressing such an element of surprise and amazement at something that is seen.
Image: the English word may be misleading, since it can refer to any sort of likeness, whether in two dimensions (drawings, photographs) or in three dimensions. Here the likeness is in three dimensions, and the term is better translated “statue” as in the majority of English versions (including New Revised Standard Version).
There is no hint in the text that the statue was an idol; so words having this meaning should be avoided. In some languages there are different words for statues carved of wood and those made of ceramic material or metal. Since this statue was made mostly of a variety of metals but partially of ceramic material, it will probably be better to use the term that refers to metal objects, if such a distinction is required by the language.
The description of the statue emphasizes two main characteristics at the same time. It is both magnificent and terrifying. The terms great and mighty and of exceeding brightness stress the magnificence of the statue. But the word frightening indicates that it also caused great fear. The text also indicates that the giant statue was standing in front of the king. The word mighty may be misunderstood as referring to physical strength, but the term used here clearly refers to size.
Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René & Ellington, John. A Handbook on Daniel. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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