Καὶ παρατηρήσαντες ἀπέστειλαν ἐγκαθέτους ὑποκρινομένους ἑαυτοὺς δικαίους εἶναι, ἵνα ἐπιλάβωνται αὐτοῦ λόγου, ὥστε παραδοῦναι αὐτὸν τῇ ἀρχῇ καὶ τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ τοῦ ἡγεμόνος.
The Question about Paying Tribute
20So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said and then to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor.
The term that is translated as “test” or “trap” in English is rendered in Natügu with the phrase “catch him in a net.” (Source: David Clark)
In Noongar it is translated with a derivative of “fish trap” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).
In the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) it is often translate idiomatically as einen Strick drehen or “give him enough rope so he will hang himself.”
See also trap him by what he said / catch him in some statement.
The Greek that is translated as “trap him by what he said” or “catch him in some statement” in English is translated in Chuukese and Pohnpeian as “to catch-him-like-a-fish with-reference-to his words,” in Sranan Tongo as “to spy on him till he would miss his mouth (i.e. make a mistake in speaking),” and in Tzeltal as “that they would be able to find his sin if his words became bad.”
See also test / trap.
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 20:20:
Following is a list of (back-) translations of various languages:
See also respectable, righteous, righteous (person), devout, and She is more in the right(eous) than I.
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and one for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains in the following way: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
See also first person pronoun referring to God.
Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Gender of God .
在现代汉语中，第三人称单数代词的读音都是一样的（tā），但是写法并不一样，取决于性别以及是否有生命，即男性为“他”，女性为“她”，动物、植物和无生命事物为“它”（在香港和台湾的汉语使用，动物则为“牠”）。这些字的部首偏旁表明了性别（男人、女人、动物、无生命事物），而另一偏旁通常旁提示发音。
到1930年为止，基督教新教《圣经》经过整整一百年的翻译已经拥有了十几个译本，当时的一位圣经翻译者王元德新造了一个“神圣的”代词“祂”，偏旁“礻”表示神明。一般汉语读者会立即知道这字的发音是tā，而这个偏旁表示属灵的事物，因此他们明白这个字指出，三位一体的所有位格都没有性别之分，而单单是上帝。
然而，最重要的新教圣经译本（1919年的《和合本》）和天主教圣经译本（1968年的《思高圣经》）都没有采用“祂”；虽然如此，许多其他的圣经译本采用了这个字，另外还广泛出现在赞美诗和其他基督信仰的书刊中。（资料来源：Zetzsche）
《吕振中译本》的几个早期版本也使用“祂”来指称“上帝”；这个译本的《新约》于1946年译成，整部《圣经》于1970年完成。克拉默斯（Kramers）指出：“‘他’的这种新写法（即‘祂’）产生了一个小问题，就是在指称耶稣的时候，是否一律使用这个敬语代词？《吕振中译本》遵循的原则是，在称呼耶稣这个人的时候，用一般的‘他’，而在称呼耶稣神性的时候，特别是升天之后的耶稣，则用尊称‘祂’。”
Translator: Simon Wong
Exegesis:
paratērēsantes lit. ‘after watching’ either with auton ‘him,’ i.e. Jesus., understood, or without object in an absolute sense, i.e. ‘watching their opportunity,’ preferably the latter.
egkathetous hupokrinomenous heautous dikaious einai ‘spies who pretended to be righteous.’ dikaious is best interpreted, ‘scrupulous,’ ‘conscientious,’ since it is a matter of doing the right thing.
egkathetos lit. ‘suborned, or hired,’ i.e. to perform a secret commission, hence ‘secret agent.’ Here the commission is to try to catch Jesus in his words.
hupokrinomai ‘to pretend.’ The participial clause hupokrinomenous … einai refers to the method which the agents were to use.
hina epilabōntai autou logou ‘in order that they (i.e. the agents) might catch him in/on a word.’ epilabōntai is best understood as construed with two genitives i.e. the genitive of the person (autou), and the genitive of the thing in which (logou).
hōste paradounai auton tē archē kai tē exousia tou hēgemonos ‘so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and the authority of the governor.’ hōste with infinitive refers here to the intended result. archē and exousia are probably best understood as a hendiadys.
hēgemōn (also 21.12) ‘governor,’ in itself a general term and applicable to the Roman emperor and his underlings (cf. hēgemoneuō in 2.2, and hēgemonia in 3.1).
Translation:
They watched him, preferably, ‘they looked out for an opportunity,’ “they watched for the right time” (Good News Translation).
An existing receptor language term for spies often does not fit the situation: a term for ‘secret agent’ may not exist in the language. Then one may have to use a descriptive phrase, e.g. ‘men secretly commissioned/told/persuaded,’ ‘people hired/bribed’; such a phrase may have to be connected with the following ‘that’-clause, which indicates what they were commissioned (etc.) to do.
Pretended to be sincere, or, ‘posed as conscientious people,’ ‘played the conscientious’ (Bible de Jérusalem), ‘acted as conscientious though they were not.’ Sincere, preferably, ‘conscientious,’ ‘strict/punctilious (in their behaviour),’ especially in their observance of the religious law.
That they might take hold of what he said, or, ‘to ensnare him in an utterance-of-his’ (Bahasa Indonesia RC), ‘to catch-him-like-a-fish with-reference-to his words’ (Trukese, Pohnpeian), ‘to spy on him till he would miss his mouth (i.e. make a mistake in speaking)’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘that they would be able to find his sin if his words became bad’ (Tzeltal).
So as to, or, ‘so that they could,’ ‘which would enable them’; usually better as a new sentence, e.g. ‘Thus they expected to be able to…,’ ‘Thus they might…’ (Leyden).
Deliver him up, or, ‘turn/hand him over,’ ‘seize and bring him.’ The verb in itself neutral, has in this context a pejorative meaning, but less so than ‘to betray’ (cf. on 6.16), since it does not presuppose a violation of allegiance.
The authority and jurisdiction of the governor, or, ‘the power and authority of the governor,’ ‘the hand(s) (in the sense of ‘power’) and authority of the governor,’ ‘the supreme-power of the governor’ (Willibrord). If the verb only takes a personal indirect object, one may shift to, ‘the governor, who had authority and jurisdiction (over him),’ cf. ‘the governor, he being the one who had power and authority’ (Shona 1966), ‘the one in authority’ (Zarma), ‘those who (were) in power (to) watch over the land’ (Ekari) For governor see on 2.2.
The rather intricate sentence pattern may have to be recast, especially where “spies” has to be rendered by a descriptive phrase, and/or the linguistic and historical order should closely parallel each other. This may result e.g. in, ‘They watched their chance and intended (or hoped to be able) to deliver him to … the governor. Therefore they secretly commissioned some men, who were to pose as conscientious people, and sent them to catch him in his words (or, commissioned some men and sent them to catch him in his words. To do so these men were to pose as conscientious people).’
Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.
Section 20:20–26
Jewish leaders tried to trap Jesus with a question about taxes
The chief priests, the scribes, and the elders mentioned in 20:1 sent men to trick Jesus into saying something for which they could accuse him and arrest him. They wanted to cause trouble for him.
The men asked Jesus, “Should the Jews pay taxes to the Roman Emperor Caesar or not?” The word “Caesar” was the title that the Roman people gave to their highest ruler, the emperor. The Romans ruled over the Jews at that time and forced them to pay taxes.
The men’s question was difficult because either a “yes” or a “no” answer would cause problems for Jesus. If Jesus answered, “yes, the Jews should pay taxes to the Romans,” he would make the Jews angry. If he answered “no, they should not pay,” he would make the Roman government angry. But Jesus answered wisely and avoided the trap that the Jewish leaders set for him.
Some examples of headings for this section are:
The Question about Paying Taxes (Good News Translation)
-or-
Paying Taxes to Caesar (New International Version)
-or-
Should people pay taxes to Caesar ⌊or not⌋?
There are parallel passages for this section in Matthew 22:15–22 and Mark 12:13–17.
Paragraph 20:20–22
20:20a
This verse begins a new event. It tells what the Jewish leaders did after Jesus told his parable. They wanted to arrest him, so they continued to watch him closely, and sent people to try to trick him. Some English versions begin the new event with “Then.” Others have “So” because the event in this section is a result of what happened in the preceding section. Some versions have no conjunction here. Begin this section in a natural way in your language.
So they watched Him closely: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as they watched Him closely means “having watched carefully.” The Greek text does not specify who or what the leaders were watching. There are at least two possibilities:
(a) They were watching Jesus. For example:
they watched Him (New American Standard Bible)
(b) They were watching for an opportunity to trap him or arrest him. For example:
they looked for an opportunity (Good News Translation)
These two possibilities have almost the same meaning in this context, and either one is a good translation. The leaders watched Jesus and listened carefully to what he said because they wanted to accuse him of saying something wrong. Then they would have an excuse to arrest him.
they: The pronoun they refers to “scribes and the chief priests,” who were mentioned in 20:19a. In some languages you may be able to use a shorter phrase here. Refer back to them in a natural way in your language.
20:20b
sent spies: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as sent spies indicates that the Jewish leaders hired men to get information from Jesus in a deceitful way. The leaders wanted to use that information to accuse him to the authorities. Some other ways to translate this are:
they hired some men and told them to go and deceive Jesus
-or-
They bribed some men…and they sent them to trap Jesus (Good News Translation)
The information about what they were sent to do is made more explicit in 20:20c.
spies: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as spies refers to people who are hired to get information by using deceitful methods. In some languages a word like spies may be used only in certain contexts that do not fit this situation. If that is true in your language, you may need to use a different word or a descriptive phrase. For example:
deceivers
-or-
people to trick/trap Jesus
who pretended to be sincere: The clause who pretended to be sincere tells the method that the leaders wanted the spies to use. The leaders wanted the spies to pretend to be honest. This clause does not imply that the leaders also hired some men who were actually honest. Other ways to translate this clause are:
to pretend they were sincere (Good News Translation)
-or-
and asked/told them to pretend to be sincere
-or-
pretending to be honest men (New Living Translation (2004))
pretended to be sincere: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as sincere literally means “honest,” “righteous,” or “upright.” In this context it refers to being sincere, true, or genuine. The spies pretended to be sincere in wanting advice from Jesus. However, they were not sincere. They were trying to deceive him.
20:20c
They were hoping to catch Him in His words: This clause tells the purpose that the Jewish leaders had for sending the spies to Jesus. They wanted to cause Jesus to say something that they could use as a reason to arrest him. Some other ways to say this are:
in order to trap him by what he said (New Revised Standard Version)
-or-
They tried to get Jesus to say something that could be reported (New Living Translation (2004))
The Greek text continues the same sentence from 20:20b. If you begin a new sentence here, as the Berean Standard Bible does, you may need to specify who hoped to catch Jesus. The leaders were the ones who hoped to catch him, and they were using the spies to help them. In some languages it may be necessary to make this clear. For example:
The religious leaders ⌊told the spies⌋ to catch/trap Jesus in something he said.
20:20d
in order to hand Him over to the rule and authority of the governor: This clause is another purpose clause. It tells the leaders’ purpose for tricking Jesus into saying something that would trouble the authorities (20:20c). They intended to use what he said to persuade the governor to arrest him and punish him. In some languages it may be necessary to make this purpose more explicit. For example:
so that they might accuse him to the governor, and the governor would use his power and authority ⌊to arrest/punish him⌋
the rule and authority of the governor: The Greek words that the Berean Standard Bible translates as rule and authority have almost the same meaning. The governor had the right to force people to obey the laws. In some languages it may be more natural to express the meaning with only one word or phrase. For example:
the authority of the governor
-or-
to the governor for judgment
In some languages the term governor already indicates that the governor has rule and authority. If that is true in your language, you may be able to leave these ideas implied. For example:
hand him over to the Roman governor (Contemporary English Version)
governor: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as governor is a general word that means “local ruler” or “leader.” Here it refers to the ruler of the province of Judea, who was Pontius Pilate. He ruled under the authority of the emperor. Use an appropriate word in your language.
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