complete verse (Matthew 12:36)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 12:36:

  • Uma: “So, so that you know: on the Kiama Day. every person must be responsible for every one of his words. Even if it is a word that has no purpose, he must be responsible.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “I tell you, when the day arrives when God judges mankind the people will have to tell about all they have said which has no use/all useless words.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “I tell you that in the future on the day of punishment, God will ask everyone why they said words with no value.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Consider what I say to you. On the day that God judges the people, it will be up-to-them to answer for all they have said that had no purpose.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “But this is really true which I will say to you, that at the day of judging, people will have to answer for every worthless word of theirs.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “I tell you that on the day God judges people, then all the evil words which have come from their mouths will all be punished.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

formal pronoun: Jesus addressing religious leaders

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, Jesus is addressing religious leaders with the formal pronoun, showing respect. Compare that with the typical address with the informal pronoun of the religious leaders.

The only two exceptions to this are Luke 7:40/43 and 10:26 where Jesus uses the informal pronoun as a response to the sycophantic use of the formal pronoun by the religious leaders (see formal pronoun: religious leaders addressing Jesus).

In most Dutch translations, the same distinctions are made, with the exception of Luke 10:26 where Jesus is using the formal pronoun. In Afrikaans and Western Frisian the informal pronoun is used throughout.

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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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 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.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also pronoun for “God”.

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)

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 formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Matthew 12:36

This verse, which introduces the judgment in typical Matthean style, is found only in his Gospel.

I tell you is equivalent to the similar structure in 5.20.

On the day of judgment comes last in the Greek sentence structure; but it is emphatic, and its positioning in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation at the first of the sentence is more natural for English speakers. An American Translation has a fairly literal representation of the Greek word order: “But I tell you, for every careless word that men utter they will have to answer on the Day of Judgment.” New English Bible also retains the phrase at the last of the sentence, though doing other restructuring: “… there is not a thoughtless word that comes from men’s lips but they will have to account for it on the day of judgment.”

The day of judgment is “the day when God will judge all people (of the world).”

Men is used of all people; Good News Translation has “everyone.”

To render account means to explain why things were said. The explanation will be before God, so the sentence can be “… people are going to have to tell God why they said every useless word they did.”

Careless (so also Phillips, Barclay) is translated “useless” by Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch. New American Bible has “unguarded” and New Jerusalem Bible “unfounded.” This same adjective is used in James 2.20, where the meaning is clearly “useless.” Jerusalem Bible has a footnote: “Not a merely ‘idle’ word but a malicious and baseless assertion, a calumny.” To convey the meaning of careless, translators may say “every word that did harm” or “every word that they should not have said.” But it must be clear that it was because they were harmful that these words should not have been said. One natural way in some languages to restructure this sentence is this: “But I assure you, when God comes to judge all people, at that time everyone will have to explain to him why they said every word they spoke which did harm.”

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 .