worship

Click here to view graphically

The Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek terms that are often translated as “worship” (also, “kneel down” or “bow down”) are likewise translated in other languages in certain categories, including those based on physical activity, those which incorporate some element of “speaking” or “declaring,” and those which specify some type of mental activity.

Following is a list of (back-) translations (click or tap for details):

  • Javanese: “prostrate oneself before”
  • Malay: “kneel and bow the head”
  • Kaqchikel: “kneel before”
  • Loma (Liberia): “drop oneself beneath God’s foot”
  • Tepeuxila Cuicatec: “wag the tail before God” (using a verb which with an animal subject means “to wag the tail,” but with a human subject)
  • Tzotzil: “join to”
  • Kpelle: “raise up a blessing to God”
  • Kekchí: “praise as your God”
  • Cashibo-Cacataibo: “say one is important”
  • San Blas Kuna: “think of God with the heart”
  • Rincón Zapotec: “have one’s heart go out to God”
  • Tabasco Chontal: “holy-remember” (source of this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Bariai: “lift up God’s name” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Q’anjob’al: “humble oneself before” (source: Newberry and Kittie Cox in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 91ff. )
  • Alur: rwo: “complete submission, adoration, consecration” (source: F. G. Lasse in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 22ff. )
  • Obolo: itọtọbọ ebum: “express reverence and devotion” (source: Enene Enene)
  • Ngäbere: “cut oneself down before” (“This figure of speech comes from the picture of towering mahoganies in the forest which, under the woodman’s ax, quiver, waver, and then in solemn, thunderous crashing bury their lofty heads in the upstretched arms of the surrounding forest. This is the experience of every true worshiper who sees ‘the Lord, high and lifted up.’ Our own unworthiness brings us low. As the Valientes say, ‘we cut ourselves down before’ His presence. Our heads, which have been carried high in self-confidence, sink lower and lower in worship.)
  • Tzeltal: “end oneself before God.” (“Only by coming to the end of oneself can one truly worship. The animist worships his deities in the hope of receiving corresponding benefits, and some pagans in Christendom think that church attendance is a guarantee of success in this life and good luck in the future. But God has never set a price on worship except the price that we must pay, namely, ‘coming to the end of ourselves.'”) (Source of this and the one above: Nida 1952, p. 163)
  • Folopa: “die under God” (“an idiom that roughly back-translates “dying under God” which means lifting up his name and praising him and to acknowledge by everything one does and thanks that God is superior.”) (Source: Anderson / Moore, p. 202)
  • Chokwe: kuivayila — “rub something on” (“When anyone goes into the presence of a king or other superior, according to native law and custom the inferior gets down on the ground, takes a little earth in the fingers of his right hand, rubs it on his own body, and then claps his hands in homage and the greeting of friendship. It is a token of veneration, of homage, of extreme gratitude for some favor received. It is also a recognition of kingship, lordship, and a prostrating of oneself in its presence. Yet it simply is the applicative form of ‘to rub something on oneself’, this form of the verb giving the value of ‘because of.’ Thus in God’s presence as king and Lord we metaphorically rub dirt on ourselves, thus acknowledging Him for what He really is and what He has done for us.”) (Source: D. B. Long in The Bible Translator 1952, p. 87ff. )

In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning:

Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.

formal pronoun: demons or Satan addressing Jesus

Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.

As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee. Here, Satan, demons or demon-possessed men address Jesus with the formal pronoun, signaling submission. Jesus on the other hand, responds with an informal pronoun which signals his more powerful position.

In Burmese there are three different levels of speech: common language, religious language (addressing and honoring monks, etc.), and royal language (which is not in active use anymore). Earliest Bible translations used exclusively royal and religious language (in the way Jesus is addressed by others and in the way Jesus is referred to via pronouns), which results in Jesus being divine and not human. Later editions try to make distinctions. In the Common Language Version (publ. 2005), Satan is shown to recognize Jesus as Lord when he addresses Jesus as ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) (see pronoun for “God”). At the same time he is rude to Jesus when he refers to himself by the pronoun nga (ငါ) which indicates a similar or superior position, declaring himself to be the same or superior to Jesus’ Lordship. (See Matthew 4:9 and Luke 4:6 and 7.) (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )

complete verse (Luke 4:7)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 4:7:

  • Noongar: “You will have all these things if you kneel to me.'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “So, if you (sing.) worship me, I will give it all to you (sing.) right now.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “If you prostrate before me, all this is yours.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “All of this I will give to you if you will worship me.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Kneel down then to worship/praise me, and all those will be yours (sing.).'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Therefore provided you will worship me, all can be yours.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “Therefore if you kneel down and then lift up my name, then all these things will be yours.'” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Kupsabiny (verses 6 and 7): “He told Jesus, ‘If you kneel for me, I will give you the authority to rule all these countries, because I have the authority to give to any one whom I have accepted/chosen.'” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Mairasi: “All of that will be Yours, if You will bow down [and] worship me then it will happen’ says he.” (Source Enggavoter 2004)

Translation commentary on Luke 4:7

Exegesis:

su oun ean proskunēsēs enōpion emou ‘if you, then, will worship me.’ su at the beginning of the clause before the conjunction ean again is emphatic. oun indicates that the clause draws an inference from what precedes. This inference is that the devil is in a position to dictate the terms on which he is willing to do what he promised in v. 6, ‘to you I will give you all this power.’

proskuneō lit. ‘to prostrate oneself,’ hence ‘to worship,’ usually with dative (cf. Mt. 4.9) or accusative (as in v. 8), here with enōpion with genitive (for which cf. on 1.15), which sounds somewhat more solemn than v. 8.

estai sou pasa ‘it will all be yours’; subject is exousia understood. sou lit. ‘of you’ is predicate. pasa, grammatically going with the subject understood, modifies the predicate: it will be yours in its completeness, i.e. you will possess it completely.

Translation:

You will worship me and you shall worship the Lord (v. 8). If the receptor language provides possibilities of variation, two expressions should be chosen that have virtually the same meaning but a slightly different form. In several cases, however, such differentiation would result in a rendering of the first phrase that is unidiomatic rather than solemn, or changes the connexion between action and goal, e.g. by making it too indirect (as in “you will worship before me”, Moffatt), or is formally much more dissimilar than the two phrases are in the original. In such cases it is preferable to neglect the formal difference (cf. Revised Standard Version, New English Bible and many other versions). In several languages of Indonesia the term used refers to the gesture of worship or homage that is traditional in that region, i.e., the hands with fingertips raised to the chin or higher while the body is in a bowing, squatting or kneeling position. Another interesting rendering is, ‘to remember as holy’ (Tabasco Chontal).

It shall all be yours, or, ‘it shall belong to you completely’ (Bible de Jérusalem), ‘all this shall be your property/possession/part,’ ‘all this, you shall be its master’ (Toraja-Sa’dan).

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.

SIL Translator’s Notes on Luke 4:7

4:7a

So: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as So introduces the conclusion to all that Satan said in 4:6. The New American Standard Bible translates this conjunction as:

Therefore

if You worship me: The phrase if You worship me is the sin that the devil was tempting Jesus to commit. The devil promised to give Jesus authority over the nations, but only if Jesus worshiped him. The devil wanted Jesus to acknowledge him to be his leader. He wanted to gain control over Jesus.

worship me: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as worship refers to bowing down before someone or something. In biblical times, people bowed down, knelt, or lay on the ground before their kings and their idols. In this way, they showed respect, reverence, and humility.

Some other ways to translate this are:

bow down and worship me (New Living Translation (1996))
-or-
kneel down before me

4:7b

it will all be Yours: The phrase it will all be Yours means “all the authority over the nations will be yours.” Satan was telling Jesus that if Jesus would worship him, then Satan would cause Jesus to control the world. Some other ways to translate this are:

I will give it all to you (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
you can control the whole world
-or-
you will rule every nation

Satan was lying. Luke did not imply that the devil was telling the truth. He simply reported what the devil said.

General Comment on 4:7a–b

In some languages, it may be more natural to change the order of 4:7a and 4:7b. For example:

7bI will give it all to you 7aif you will bow down and worship me. (New Living Translation (1996))

© 2009, 2010, 2013 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.