The main difficulties in translation of idioms used in the Bible

Idioms are a fixed expression with nonliteral meaning: a fixed distinctive expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from the combined meanings of its actual words [8]. A drop in the bucket is a very small part of something big or whole. All in the same boat is when everyone is facing the same challenges. An axe to grind is to have a dispute with someone. Field day is an enjoyable day or circumstance. Method to my madness is strange or crazy actions that appear meaningless but in the end are done for a good reason. Idioms are by far the most difficult for of literature to interpret and translate.

“Between the Devil and the deep blue sea ” is equivalent to our “ between a rock and a hard place.” Both mean that someone is in a serious dilemma of two very undesirable choices. Have you ever had to tell someone, ‘look you are beating a dead horse,’ meaning the continuation of the discussion is futile. On the other hand, how about, ‘listen, you are preaching to the choir,’ which means you are trying to convince your listener of something that he probably holds more strongly to than you do. Let us see one option that some dynamic equivalents have tried to use in dealing with an idiom at: 1: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea was written by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen, and recorded by Cab Calloway in 1931.

Idioms can present unique problems to translators because there is the difficult decision of whether it should be rendered literally or be interpreted for the reader. An example would be the English expression “bite your tongue”. This expression in any other language would be taken literally to mean the act of biting one’s tongue, thus resulting in the infliction of pain to the tongue. Yet most of the American English-speaking community understands that the phrase actually means to ‘refrain from speaking.’ Below is a Biblical example of a Hebrew idiom in a literal translation wherein the idiom was rendered literally, and a dynamic equivalent translation that presents the same verses using more interpretation for the reader:

15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none” [7, Psalm 10:15].

What must be understood is that all societies, past and present, have figures of speech that are commonly used to express meaning, just as did those in Bible times. Moreover, figures of speech convey a meaning that is no different from if it was used literally. This is not to say that we take the figurative speech literally, but when someone says that this is a figure of speech, he does not mean that its meaning is ambiguous (can contain more than one meaning), it is specific and has one intended meaning just as other forms of speech do. Take for example; ‘off the top of your head,’ ‘by the skin of his teeth,’ and ‘the handwriting on the wall’ all are English examples of idioms.

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