lame

The Greek that is translated as “lame” in English is translated in various ways:

leprosy, leprous

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The Greek and Hebrew terms that are often translated as “leprosy (or: defiling/skin disease)” or “leprous (person)” in English is translated in Mairasi as “the bad sickness,” since “leprosy is very common in the Mairasi area” (source: Enggavoter 2004).

Following are various other translations:

  • Shilluk: “disease of animals”
  • San Mateo Del Mar Huave: “devil sore” (this and the above are indigenous expressions)
  • Inupiaq: “decaying sores”
  • Kaqchikel: “skin-rotting disease” (source for this and three above: Eugene Nida in The Bible Translator 1960, p. 34f. )
  • Noongar: “bad skin disease” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Usila Chinantec “sickness like mal de pinta” (a skin disease involving discoloration by loss of pigment) (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • Hiligaynon: “dangerous skin disease” (source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “fearful skin disease” (source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “terrible rotting” (source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
  • Newari: “infectious skin disease” (source: Newari Back Translation)

Targumim (or: Targums) are translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. They were translated and used when Jewish congregations increasingly could not understand the biblical Hebrew anymore. Targum Onqelos (also: Onkelos) is the name of the Aramaic translation of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) probably composed in Israel/Palestine in the 1st or 2nd century CE and later edited in Babylon in the 4th or 5th century, making it reflect Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. It is the most famous Aramaic translation and was widely used throughout the Jewish communities. In Leviticus 13 and 14 it translates tzaraat as a “quarantining affliction” — focusing “on what occurs to individuals after they suffer the affliction; the person is isolated from the community.” (Source: Israel Drazin in this article ). Similarly, the English Jewish Orthodox ArtScroll Tanach translation (publ. 2011) transliterates it as tzaraat affliction.

See also stricken and leprosy healed.

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Leprosy (Word Study) and Bible Translations Are for People .

complete verse (Matthew 11:5)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 11:5:

  • Uma: “The blind see, the lame walk straight, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, dead people I made live again, and the Good News I announce to people whose lives are pitiful.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Tell him that the blind see already/now, the crippled walk, the lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the dead live again and the good news are proclaimed to the people who are to be pitied.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Jesus answered, ‘Go back to John and tell him what you’ve seen that I have done and what you’ve heard that I have spoken. What you should tell him is that because of me the blind can already see, the lame can already walk, lepers are cured, and deaf people are now able to hear. I have raised the dead, and I have caused the Good News to be understood by poor people. Far better off is the person who does not doubt that I am the one God sent.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “that the blind, they are-able-to-see, the lame, they can-walk, those who have a fearful skin disease, they have-become-well, the deaf, they can-hear, the dead, they have-lived again, and the good news, it is being preached to the poor.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “that the blind can now see, the lame can now walk, the leprosy of the lepers has now stopped, the deaf can now hear, and even those already dead are living again, and the Good News is being taught to the low-class/insignificant.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Tell him that the blind now see. The lame now walk. The people whose bodies were rotting now have been healed. The deaf now hear. The dead now have been resurrected. The poor have been told the good news.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Matthew 11:5

Both Good News Translation and Revised Standard Version end verse 4 with a colon to indicate that the list in verse 5 is what John’s disciples are seeing and hearing. In many languages the normal way to show this relation is to begin the verse with a phrase such as “These things are…” or “The things you see and hear are that the blind people are made to see….”

Traduction œcuménique de la Bible indicates that Jesus is quoting Isaiah here by putting the verse in italics. However, because the list is only partially from Isaiah, and from different places in Isaiah (as we point out above), then it is probably not necessary to do this. A footnote will be helpful, however.

The phrase the blind receive their sight may be rendered “people who are blind can see” or “… are made to see.” However, some languages prefer to indicate the agent, as in “I make blind people see.”

Actually it may be necessary to indicate the agent throughout this verse, as in “I make lame people walk, I make lepers clean, I make deaf people hear, I raise people to life, and I am preaching the Good News to the poor.” However, the focus as it stands in the text is on these unfortunate people who are having something good done to them, and the rendering as above will result in some loss of this. So a translation such as “the blind people can see, crippled people can now walk … and poor people can now listen to the proclamation of the Good News” will be better.

Note that the blind does not mean all the blind people, but rather those who came to Jesus for help. “People who are blind” or “blind people” will be good translations. This is also the case with the lame, lepers, the deaf, the dead, and the poor.

It may also be necessary to put the blindness in the past tense, as “people who were blind can now see.” This will be equally true for the lame walk. “People who were crippled can now walk” will be a good rendering. Similarly, lepers can be “those who were lepers,” the deaf can be “those who were deaf,” and the dead is translated “people who had died.” Presumably, however, the poor remain poor.

Lepers are cleansed: see comments on 8.2.

Poor translates the same word discussed in 5.3. In this context it should be translated simply as “poor people,” that is, people who are destitute. It is not referring to spiritual poverty here.

Have good news preached (literally “are evangelized”) translates a verb which occurs more than twenty-five times in Luke–Acts, but only here in Matthew.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .