Abstract nouns and other confusing language

English – and Greek and Hebrew – have some very clever grammar which allows you to leave a lot of information out of a sentence. (Which leaves Bible translators trying to figure out all that information!)

For example, if I talk about “My salvation”, who is saving who?

What about, “God’s salvation”? Who is saving who?

(That’s confusing!)

And when did/does/will the saving happen?

“Salvation” is an abstract noun, and abstract nouns allow you to talk about an action without having to provide a lot of information. Aboriginal languages don’t have many abstract nouns, so we need to translate who is saving who, and decide on the tense of the verb (past/present/future).

E.g. Genesis 49:18, where Jacob is speaking to God.

ESV: I wait for your salvation

PEV: I am waiting for you to save us

Dependent clauses are another example. Standard English loves to attach a clause to another sentence and leave out lots of information.

E.g. John 6:15 (ESV): Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, ...

Who did the perceiving? When did they do it? Why does it have "-ing" as if it's happening now?

The first clause “Perceiving ...” is dependent on the following clause to tell you who did the action and when.

John 6:15 (ESV): Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Jesus did the action in the second clause, and he did it in the past, so we assume that he also did the perceiving, and did it in the past. But Aboriginal languages can’t leave out this kind of information, so we need make it explicit in the PEV.

John 6:15 (PEV): Jesus knew that they wanted to force him to be their big boss, and the big boss for the whole Israel nation. He didn't want them to do that, so he left them, and he went up the hill by himself.