Translating the Word of God: Are you "STILL HIGH"?

When a translation is done, you study the meaning of the source lan­guage—Greek or Hebrew—and then you look for the lexical resources of the target language that convey the same meaning. It's never easy or boring. Often you come up with a good solution only to find a better one later. That is just what happened to us, by God's grace. A Hebrew expression, אֵינֶֽנּוּ, is trans­lated by “is no more”. It occurs three times in Genesis 42:13-36, referring to Joseph. It is a “softer” or euphemistic way of dealing with the subject of death. Elanga Ferdinand, president of the language committee, helped me understand a Badwe'e expression for this: nye aka be kʉ: “he is not high any­more.”Whatever meaning comes to mind when you hear this, for those seeing life through Badwe'e eyes, the words mean that the person in question is no longer above ground. He has been buried and is dead. That is the meaning of this euphemistic expression for them. That is what they understand when they hear that “Joseph is not high anymore.”