fear (of God)

The Hebrew and Greek that are translated as “fear (of God)” (or: “honor,” “worship,” or “respect”) is translated as “to have respect/reverence for” (Southern Subanen, Western Highland Purepecha, Navajo (Dinė), Javanese, Tboli), “to make great before oneself” (Ngäbere), “fear-devotion” (Kannada — currently used as a description of the life of piety), “those-with-whom he-is-holy” (those who fear God) (Western Apache) (source for this and above: Reiling / Swellengrebel), “revere God” (Lalana Chinantec), “worship God” (Palantla Chinantec) (source for this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), “obey” (Chichewa) (source: Ernst Wendland), “having/showing respect (for God)” (Makonde) (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext), or with a term that communicates awe (rather than fear of an evil source) (Chol) (source: Robert Bascom).

Bullard / Hatton (2008, p. 8) say the following about this concept: “As the writer of Proverbs states in 1:7, ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.’ (…) ‘The fear of the Lord,’ that is, human fear of God, is an exceptionally difficult concept to express, at least in English. Other languages may have more appropriate terms. The idea probably is rooted in the most ancient days when people were indeed afraid of any deity. But in Israel the concept of fearing God was transformed by God’s revelation into a much fuller idea. Basically, as used in the Bible, the fear of God refers to the proper attitude of reverence and awe before the Holy One. To fear God is to recognize one’s own place as a mere mortal before the Creator, one’s place as a sinner before the Judge, one’s place as a child before the Father, one’s place as the recipient of God’s love. It thus involves submission, repentance, trust, and grateful love toward the One who is fearsome in holiness, in justice, in power that both protects and punishes, and in love. Using the word “fear” is sometimes as good as we can do, but often we will alternate that word with terms like ‘reverence’ or ‘awe.’”

See also fear of the LORD (Isa 11:2) and complete verse (Genesis 22:12) et al.

knowledge ("word wisdom")

In the Tzeltal translation for the dialectal variant of Highland Tzeltal (Biblia Tzeltal yu’un Oxchuc soc Tenejapa, 2001) the translation team used three different words to translate the Hebrew term that is translated as “wisdom” in English. One of them is p’ijil c’op or “word wisdom” which is also used for “knowledge.”

For the complete story and more background, please see wisdom (Proverbs).

Translation commentary on Proverbs 1:29

Verses 29 and 30 give the reason for verse 28.

“Because they hated knowledge” is the same as in verse 22. See there for comments. The sense of “hated knowledge” is “rejected” or “refused.” Rather than “hated knowledge” some languages prefer the form “you did not want to have knowledge.” Translators may find it best to use a verb phrase to express the sense of “knowledge”; for example, “You refused to learn.” Bible en français courant says “You have refused to learn to live.”

“Did not choose the fear of the Lord“: “Not choose” is used as a matching term for “hated” in the first line of this verse. “Did not choose” may be rendered “You did not follow,” “You turned against,” or “You would have no part in.” “Fear of the Lord” is the same as in verse 7.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

complete verse (Proverbs 1:29)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Proverbs 1:29:

  • Kupsabiny: “I will not answer you because you hate wisdom and you don’t want to obey God,” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Because you have scorned wisdom,
    [you] have not feared the Lord.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “For you (plur.) do- not -want to-be-taught and you (plur.) did- not -chose to respect the LORD.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “For you refused to-be-taught and to esteem God.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)

SIL Translator’s Notes on Proverbs 1:29

1:29

Notice the parallel parts that are similar in meaning:

29a For they hated knowledge

29b and chose not to fear the LORD,

This verse gives two parallel reasons for the consequences described in 1:31.

1:29a–b

For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the LORD:
For the meaning of hated knowledge, see 1:22c, for fear the LORD, see 1:7a.

chose not to fear the LORD: Another way to translate this phrase is:

have always refused to obey the Lord (Good News Translation)

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