41You shall put them on your brother Aaron and on his sons with him and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, so that they may serve me as priests.
The Greek and Hebrew that are translated as “consecration” or “consecrate” in English is translated in Poqomchi’ as “set apart” (when applying to a ritual not to a moral status). (Source: Robert Bascom)
In Newari it is translated as “make holy” (source: Newari Back Translation) and in Kwere as “put to holy work” when it refers to making someone or something suitable for priestly duties, when it refers to individual consecration outside of the priestly duty, “offer (yourselves) for my sake” is also used. (Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The Greek and Hebrew that is translated as “brother” in English is translated in Kwere as sekulu, in Elhomwe as mbalaawo´, and in Mandarin Chinese as gēgē (哥哥), both “older brother.”
Note that Kwere also uses lumbu — “older sibling” in some cases. (Source for Kwere and Elhomwe: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext; Chinese: Jost Zetzsche)
The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that are typically translated as “priest” in English (itself deriving from Latin “presbyter” — “elder”) is often translated with a consideration of existing religious traditions. (Click or tap for details)
Bratcher / Nida (1961) say this:
“However, rather than borrow local names for priests, some of which have unwanted connotations, a number of translations have employed descriptive phrases based on certain functions: (1) those describing a ceremonial activity: Pamona uses tadu, the priestess who recites the litanies in which she describes her journey to the upper or under-world to fetch life-spirit for sick people, animals or plants; Batak Toba uses the Arabic malim, ‘Muslim religious teacher;’ ‘one who presents man’s sacrifice to God’ (Bambara, Eastern Maninkakan), ‘one who presents sacrifices’ (Baoulé, Navajo (Dinė)), ‘one who takes the name of the sacrifice’ (Kpelle, and ‘to make a sacrifice go out’ (Hausa); (2) those describing an intermediary function: ‘one who speaks to God’ (Shipibo-Conibo) and ‘spokesman of the people before God’ (Tabasco Chontal).”
In Obolo it is translated as ogwu ngwugwa or “the one who offers sacrifice” (source: Enene Enene), in Mairasi as agam aevar nevwerai: “religious leader” (source: Enggavoter 2004), in Ignaciano as “blesser, one who does ritual as a practice” (using a generic term rather than the otherwise common Spanish loan word sacerdote) (source: Willis Ott in Notes on Translation 88/1982, p. 18ff.), and in Noongar as yakin-kooranyi or “holy worker” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).
For Guhu-Samane, Ernest Richert (in The Bible Translator, 1965, p. 81ff. ) reports this: “The [local] cult of Poro used to be an all-encompassing religious system that essentially governed all areas of life. (…) For ‘priest’ the term ‘poro father’ would at first seem to be a natural choice. However, several priests of the old cult are still living. Although they no longer function primarily as priests of the old system they still have a substantial influence on the community, and there would be more than a chance that the unqualified term would (in some contexts particularly) be equated with the priest of the poro cult. We learned, then, that the poro fathers would sometimes be called ‘knife men’ in relation to their sacrificial work. The panel was pleased to apply this term to the Jewish priest, and the Christian community has adopted it fully. [Mark 1:44, for instance, now] reads: ‘You must definitely not tell any man of this. But you go show your body to the knife man and do what Moses said about a sacrifice concerning your being healed, and the cause (base of this) will be apparent.'”
For a revision of the 1968 version of the Bible in Khmer Joseph Hong (in: The Bible Translator 1996, 233ff. ) talks about a change in wording for this term:
Bau cha r (បូជាចារ្យ) — The use of this new construction meaning “priest” is maintained to translate the Greek word hiereus. The term “mean sang (មាន សង្ឃ)” used in the old version actually means a “Buddhist monk,” and is felt to be theologically misleading. The Khmer considers the Buddhist monk as a “paddy field of merits,” a reserve of merits to be shared with other people. So a Khmer reader would find unthinkable that the mean sang in the Bible killed animals, the gravest sin for a Buddhist; and what a scandal it would be to say that a mean sang was married, had children, and drank wine.
The different Hebrew and Greek terms that are translated as “(olive) oil” and “(animal) fat” in English are translated in Kwere with only one term: mavuta. (Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 28:41:
Kupsabiny: “After that, dress your brother Aaron and his sons with these clothes. and anoint them with olive oil to serve me in burning sacrifices.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “Having put on these clothes to be worn by your brother Aaron and his sons anoint them. Consecrate them. After they have been installed in this way to be priests they can serve me as priest.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “‘Have- your (sing.) sibling/(brother) Aaron and his children/(sons) -put-on these clothes/garments, and then [you (sing.)] rub-on them with oil and ordain (them). Dedicate them to me so they may-serve me as priests.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Bariai: “And when you (pl.) decorate Aron and his male children with all these decorations and it’s done, pour oil onto their heads in order to place a mark of ownership on them for doing my work.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
Opo: “So your brother namely Aaron and his male children, you shall dress them those clothes together, apply them oil, consecrate them, in order that they might be my priests, they might do for me thing.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
English: “Put these clothes on your older brother Aaron and on his sons. Then set them apart/dedicate them for this work by anointing them with olive oil, in order that they may serve me by being priests.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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 choice of a first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.
And you shall put them upon Aaron your brother is literally “And you [singular] shall cause Aaron your [older] brother to be clothed.” The verb means to dress or put on clothes, but the causative form suggests that Moses was supposed to dress Aaron in all the priestly vestments. This was evidently to be part of the ceremony of consecration. (See 29.1, 5-6.) And upon his sons with him indicates that Aaron’s four sons (verse 1) were to be included in the same ceremony. Good News Translation has a helpful model: “Put these clothes on your brother Aaron and his sons.”
And shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them lists three more ceremonial acts. (But see below.) The word for anoint literally means to spread liquid. Here it means to pour or apply the special anointing oil (30.22-25) on their heads and on their priestly garments (29.21). Aaron was also to have this oil poured on his head (29.7). The oil was most likely “olive oil.” (See the comment on “olive” at 25.6). In some languages one may express this sentence as “Then take olive oil and apply [or, pour] it on their heads.”
Ordain them is literally “and you [singular] will fill their hand.” This is an idiom that may originally have referred to the act of placing some object in the hand of the person being installed into office. This does not mean that Moses was to lay his hand upon them. Possibly some token of their new authority was actually to be placed in their hands. Revised English Bible uses the word “install,” which may be more accurate.
Consecrate them is literally “and you [singular] will make them holy.” Good News Translation has “dedicate them,” and Durham has “set them apart.” It is unlikely that this was a separate ritual act. Probably the command to consecrate them summarizes the effect of two ritual acts: anoint and ordain. So New American Bible has “Anoint and ordain them, consecrating them as my priests.”
Good News Translation, however, suggests that “anointing” was the only ritual act intended: “Ordain them and dedicate them by anointing them.” This means that they were considered “ordained” and “dedicated” by the one act of “anointing.” This interpretation is possible, but it really has no textual support. All three verbs have the same form and are connected with “and.” (See the discussion at 29.9b.)
That they may serve me as priests is literally “and they will function to [or, for] me (as priests).” As in verse 1, a verb form of “priest” is used in the sense of “priesting.” American Standard Version has “that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office.”
An alternative translation model for this verse is:
• After that, pour [or, apply] olive oil on their heads, and ordain them. In this way you will set them apart to serve me as priests.
Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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