Discover The Word

Thursday, September 9, 2010

“Boaz replied, ‘I have been told what you did for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people that you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.’ . . . ‘The Lord bless you, my daughter,’ he replied. ’This kindness is greater than that you showed earlier. You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor’ ” (Ruth 2:11-12, 3:10).

IDEA: Hesed, the word for loyal love, is so rich that it is not easy to translate.

PURPOSE: To help listeners understand what it means to be loved by God.

What is the value of a translation by a single individual?

Translations of ancient writings are by a single translator (Aristotle’s Poetics by Malcolm Heath, Plato’s Republic by G. M. A. Grube)

A few translations of the Bible are by a single author: Eugene Peterson’s The Message, J.B. Phillips’ The Young Church in Action (Acts), or The New Testament in Modern English.

Why do you think that most translations of the Bible are by committees?

The Bible is larger and is written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.

The Bible is a sacred book and people want to “get it right.”

I. One challenge that translators have had is with the Hebrew word hesed.

One question was whether or not hesed is the result of some covenant that is made between two parties (in a family or between a king and his vassals), or whether it is freely given. Why does that question matter?

In the story of Ruth, hesed is the word for Ruth’s action in going back to Bethlehem with Naomi.

Boaz recognized what she did as “goodness” in Ruth 2:11-12 and as hesed in Ruth 3:10. It was unmotivated kindness.

II. God keeps His promises to us because of his hesed and not because He is bound by a covenant.

Hesed resembles our word “grace.” What difference does it make if God shows grace to us if we keep our end of a “covenant” and not because of His character?

What several translators bring to the translation of even a single word like hesed can protect the way it is rendered in our English versions.