Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Numbers 12:3:
Kupsabiny: “Moses was a person who brought himself down very much (was very humble) more than any other person in the land/world.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “Moses was a humble man, and then there was no one as humble in the earth.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “(Moises was very humble more than any all men on earth.)” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “The truth was that Moses/I was very humble. He/I was more humble than anyone else on the earth and Moses/I had not appointed himself/myself to be their leader.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
American Sign Language also uses the sign depicting the horns but also has a number of alternative signs (see here ).
In French Sign Language, a similar sign is used, but it is interpreted as “radiance” (see below) and it culminates in a sign for “10,” signifying the 10 commandments:
The horns that are visible in Michelangelo’s statue are based on a passage in the Latin Vulgate translation (and many Catholic Bible translations that were translated through the 1950ies with that version as the source text). Jerome, the translator, had worked from a Hebrew text without the niqquds, the diacritical marks that signify the vowels in Hebrew and had interpreted the term קרו (k-r-n) in Exodus 34:29 as קֶ֫רֶן — keren “horned,” rather than קָרַו — karan “radiance” (describing the radiance of Moses’ head as he descends from Mount Sinai).
In Swiss-German Sign Language it is translated with a sign depicting holding a staff. This refers to a number of times where Moses’s staff is used in the context of miracles, including the parting of the sea (see Exodus 14:16), striking of the rock for water (see Exodus 17:5 and following), or the battle with Amalek (see Exodus 17:9 and following).
In Vietnamese (Hanoi) Sign Language it is translated with the sign that depicts the eye make up he would have worn as the adopted son of an Egyptian princess. (Source: The Vietnamese Sign Language translation team, VSLBT)
“Moses” in Vietnamese Sign Language, source: SooSL
Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth: In this context the Hebrew word for meek is better rendered “humble” (Good News Translation), “modest” (De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling), “exceedingly unassuming” (Levine), or “not self-assertive” (NET Bible footnote). The Hebrew text does include the word man, which perhaps emphasizes Moses’ humanness, so Good News Translation is correct in keeping this word. On the face of the earth renders literally an idiomatic Hebrew expression, which means simply “on earth” (Good News Translation). Good News Translation puts this verse in parentheses, since it seems to interrupt the flow of the story. (Contemporary English Version has even moved it before verse 1, saying “Although Moses was the most humble person in all the world, Miriam and Aaron started complaining….”) But this statement about Moses is not so out of place as it may seem. The point here is that Moses had not claimed his special status; the LORD has given him this unique authority, as the LORD himself is about to point out in the strongest of terms (so Budd, page 136). This statement immediately undercuts the complaint of Miriam and Aaron. However, in some languages it may be necessary to mark this verse as a descriptive comment by the narrator that is off the event line, for example, through the use of an initial transitional expression (so Revised Standard Version with Now) or a disjunctive particle.
Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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