The Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin that is translated as a form of “save” in English is translated in Shipibo-Conibo with a phrase that means literally “make to live,” which combines the meaning of “to rescue” and “to deliver from danger,” but also the concept of “to heal” or “restore to health.”
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the writer of the letter and the readers).
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
“Hope is sometimes one of the most difficult terms to translate in the entire Bible. It is not because people do not hope for things, but so often they speak of hoping as simply ‘waiting.’ In fact, even in Spanish, the word esperar means both ‘to wait’ and ‘to hope.’ However, in many instances the purely neutral term meaning ‘to wait’ may be modified in such a way that people will understand something more of its significance. For example, in Tepeuxila Cuicatec hope is called ‘wait-desire.’ Hope is thus a blend of two activities: waiting and desiring. This is substantially the type of expectancy of which hope consists.
In Yucateco the dependence of hope is described by the phrase ‘on what it hangs.’ ‘Our hope in God’ means that ‘we hang onto God.’ The object of hope is the support of one’s expectant waiting. In Ngäbere the phrase “resting the mind” is used. This “implies waiting and confidence, and what is a better definition of hope than ‘confident waiting’.” (Source for this and above: Nida 1952, p. 20, 133)
Enlhet: “waitings of (our) innermost” (“innermost” or valhoc is a term that is frequently used in Enlhet to describe a large variety of emotions or states of mind — for other examples see here) (source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 24ff. )
Kwang: “one’s future is restored to one’s soul like a fresh, cool breeze on a hot day.” (Source: Mark Vanderkooi right here )
Noongar: koort-kwidiny or “heart waiting” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Anjam: “looking through the horizon” (source: Albert Hoffmann in his memoirs from 1948, quoted in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 7)
Ron: kintiɓwi or “put lip” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
Alekano: “wait not hearing two ears” (meaning to “wait without being double-minded” — source: Ellis Deibler in Notes on Translation June 1986, p. 36ff.)
Marathiaasha (आशा) with a stronger emphasis on desire
In Mwera “hope” and “faith” are translated with the same word: ngulupai. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
C.M. Doke looks at a number of Bantu languages and their respective translations of “hope” with slightly varying connotations (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 9ff. ):
Xhosa and Zulu: themba “hope, expect,” also “have faith in, rely upon”
Tswana: tsholofelo “hope, expect, look for confidently”
Southern Sotho: tshepo “trust, rely on, believe in, have confidence in”
“Unlike English, which uses the word hope broadly, the French language uses two words that derive from the word espérer (to hope): espoir and espérance. Both can first refer to something hoped for. In this sense, the word espoir usually refers to an uncertain object; that is, someone who hopes for something in this way does not have the certainty that it will happen (“I hope the weather will be nice tomorrow”). On the other hand, espérance describes what, rightly or wrongly, is hoped for or expected with certainty. It often refers to a philosophical or eschatological object (‘I hope in the goodness of human beings’; ‘I hope for the return of Jesus Christ’).
“When we speak of espoir or espérance, we then have in mind different types of objects hoped for. This difference matters, because both terms also commonly refer to the state of mind that characterizes the hopeful. And this state of mind will be different precisely according to the object hoped for.
“Having espoir for an uncertain yet better future in these difficult times may be a good thing, but it is not enough. Such hope can be disappointed and easily fade away when our wishes and expectations (our hopes) do not materialize.
“The opposite is true with espérance, which is deeper than our desire and wish for an end to a crisis or a future without pain and suffering. To face the trials of life, we need peace and joy in our hearts that come from expecting certain happiness. This is what espérance is: a profound and stable disposition resulting from faith in the coming of what we expect. In this sense, it is similar in meaning to the English word hopefulness.
“If we have believed in the Son of the living God, we have such a hope. It rests on the infallible promises of our God, who knows the plans he has for us, his children — plans of peace and not misfortune, to give us a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). By using the two meanings of the word, we can say that the espérance that the fulfillment of his promises represents (the object hoped for) fills us with espérance (the state of mind).”
Following are a number of back-translations of Romans 8:24:
Uma: “At this time, we have already been released from the punishment of our sins, and we hope in God, we hope he will give us all that he promised to us. Yet if we say we are hoping, that means we have not yet received what we are hoping for. For no one hopes for something he has already received.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “This indeed is what we (incl.) have been expecting/hoping since we (incl.) trusted Isa Almasi. But if our (dual) expectation/hope is fulfilled already we (dual) no longer have to expect/hope. Are we (dual) still expecting if our (dual) expectation is fulfilled?” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “We have already been freed from punishment, however, we are still waiting for God to carry this out. And when we say there’s something we are waiting for, what we mean is that that which we are waiting for has not yet come to pass, for there is no person who waits for that which has already happened.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Because this is what we have been hoping for since the time-we -were-saved. Because if it were already fulfilled, would we indeed still be hoping for it? Because no one hopes for what is already fulfilled.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “In that we believe that what God said will happen, therefore we are saved. But if it had already happened then no longer would we be waiting for it then.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
In verse 24 the emphatic element is the phrase by hope. There is some discussion as to whether Paul means by hope or “in this hope” (Revised Standard Version; see Moffatt “with this hope ahead”). In this context hope is close in meaning to “faith,” and so the rendering of the Good News Translation is more logical.
As most translators indicate, Paul uses the past tense of the verb “to be saved” in this verse: we were saved. To translate by a future tense is wrong (Jerusalem Bible “we shall be saved”), and even the use of the present (see Jerusalem Bible note “we are saved”) is misleading. Paul sometimes used this verb in a present tense (2 Corinthians 2.15), and more often in a future tense (5.9, 10), but in the present passage he uses the past tense, since his focus of attention is on the beginning of the salvation experience. Although the Christian hope is a confident expectation that God will do what he says (see 5.2), it is still something that will not be “seen” until the final day. And even though the Christian is confident that his hope will finally the realized, he must wait for it with patience. The word rendered patience in this passage is also translated as patience in 15.4, 5, but as endurance in 5.3. The word itself seems to have more of an active force than the English word “patience” suggests, and it may be more closely related to our concept of “endurance.”
It is particularly difficult in many languages to use hope without indicating who hopes. It is particularly complex to use hope merely as an expression of means without indicating the participants. Therefore, the first clause of verse 24 may require some recasting—for example, “for the fact that we were saved was because we hoped,” “for by our hoping we were saved,” or “because we looked forward with confidence God saved us.”
Since hope must frequently be expressed by some descriptive phrase such as “look forward to with confidence,” this may require some modification in the last part of the first sentence of verse 24—for example, “but if we already see what we have been looking forward to with confidence, then we are not really looking forward to it at all.” Similarly, the last sentence of verse 24 may be rendered as “for no one looks forward to something which he already sees” (in this way changing a rhetorical question into a statement). In line, then, with what has already been done in verse 24, verse 25 may be translated as “but if we look forward confidently for something which we do not see, then we do endure in our looking forward,” “… we do look forward with endurance,” “… steadfastly,” or “… not moving at all.” On the other hand, if hope is expressed by some highly idiomatic expression as, for example, “the power of the abdomen” (as it is in some languages), then quite naturally the structure of verses 24 and 25 will have to be considerably different.
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
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