It just needs a little elbow grease.
If you are a native English speaker, you know exactly what that means. You are not wondering if it is even possible to grease up an elbow. The phrase sounds normal to you, and you know that basically what was said was: Some hard work is needed.
What if, however, you were trying to explain to your non-native English speaking friend what was said? How would you go about translating it?
You could, as an option, choose to translate it strictly, in a word-for-word format. You could take each word and find its closes counterpart in whatever language you were translating into. And, hopefully, once you have done that—provided there were not many big grammatical hurdles—you’d have a pretty faithful translation of what It just needs a little elbow grease means in another language.
Or, as another option, you could choose to translate the sentence loosely, in a thought-for-thought format. You could take the “idea” of the sentence and bring that same idea into the other language without worrying too much about matching up the particular words. And then, hopefully, you have a sentence in the other language that, although it does not match all the words from English, still gets across the same idea.
The question that is always asked, however, is: What option is best—word-for-word or thought-for-thought?
This is the trouble with translation, and it happens time and time again in the Bible.
Bible translators have given all of their adult years to doing the best they can at faithfully translating the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek text of the Scriptures into whatever language they are working on. And, still, there are places where their choices (for any number of reasons) do not seem make the most sense. That is not a slam against the work of the translators; it is just a reality because of the tremendous difficulty of the job.
I have come to find that if I can just have a peek into the work that the translators are doing, I am much more willing to appreciate and respect their results (i.e., the many English translations of the Bible available to us). So, I would like to offer a peek to you with the hope that you would grow in your appreciation and respect of their results, too.
Look, with me, at a short phrase in the New Testament. In Luke 9:44, he writes this in Greek: Θέσθε ὑμεῖς εἰς τὰ ὦτα ὑμῶν τοὺς λόγους τούτους.
What in the world does that mean?
The interesting thing with this Greek phrase is that there is an idiom in there (like the English one we looked at earlier); one that English speakers do not use. The Greek phrase, strictly speaking, is you all put these words into your ears. Now, we can probably figure out what is meant by that phrase. The question for us is: How should Θέσθε ὑμεῖς εἰς τὰ ὦτα ὑμῶν τοὺς λόγους τούτους it be translated?
One option is to go for a stricter translation, translating it into basically what was just written (you all put these words into your ears). The benefit of this translation is that we have kept that original Greek phrase in-tact as much as possible. The Greek phrase talked about an action of the people (you all put), an object of that action (these words), and a goal of that action (into your ears). It would seem that little to nothing is lost in translating it that way. But is that the message Luke intended to get across? Did he really mean to have people put something in their ears? Of course not. And here is where the second option becomes available—and, perhaps, even beneficial.
Taking the same exact original Greek phrase, you could just as easily translate into something like take these words to heart, all of you. As English speakers, we know what is meant by that phrase. There is no ambiguity with it. But there is no mention of taking in the Greek. Neither is there any mention of heart in the Greek. What we have now is an English translation from Greek where two words that are not originally found are present in the translation. This could be a great cause of concern for some. In some eyes, that was not a translation choice; it was a translation manipulation…and it was probably malevolent.
What can we do?
The short answer is: examine and trust. The longer answer is: take advantage of the wealth of English translations available to us.
And, by “take advantage” I mean, read and compare them to one another. Come to the translations on their own terms, not getting upset with them because they are not what you wanted them to be.
The NIV does not read like the KJV and that is not the fault of the NIV because it was never the intention of the NIV to sound like the KJV. Let them be what they are. Examine them for yourself and then after you have done your work and you are satisfied with your understanding, trust the work of the translators.
I say “trust” because trust does not always mean agree. It means you recognize and accept the way in which a particular group of translators have translated the Bible. Then you have the freedom to either agree or disagree (i.e., read and approve of what they have translated or set it aside).
There are times to have major concerns over a Bible translation. But, taken as a whole, those times are few and far between. In the meantime, let us be thankful to God that he has not left us without a witness. He has blessed us with readable and, more importantly, understandable translations of the Bible.
The trouble with translation is that it is an almost impossible task. No translation will ever make everyone happy. But that does not mean good work has not been done. It most assuredly has, and we are cutting off our noses to spite our faces if we do not take advantage of that good work.
Go ahead and translate that!
Luke 9:44 Translation Examples:
New International Version (NIV): Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you.
New Living Translation (NLT): Listen to me and remember what I say.
English Standard Version (ESV): Let these words sink into your ears.
King James Version (KJV): Let these sayings sink down into your ears.
New American Standard Bible (NASB): As for you, let these words sink into your ears.
Christian Standard Bible (CSB): Let these words sink in.
Good News Translation (GNT): Don't forget what I am about to tell you!
New English Translation (NET): Take these words to heart.
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV): Let these words sink into your ears.