Isaiah 53 via Russian

[sfortescue]

Isaiah 53 in Russian: http://www.shalom-peace.com/Isaiah53ru.html

Isaiah 52:13-15; 53:1-12 (translated from Russian, with hope of no serious goofs)

Behold, My slave
will have good success, will be raised and will be lifted up, and will be exalted.
As many were astonished looking on You, -- so greatly was disfigured
more than any man His countenance, and His appearance -- more than human sons!
so, many peoples will He bring to astonishment;
kings will shut before Him their mouth,
for they will see that, about which was not spoken to them,
and (they) will know that, of which they had not heard.

Who has believed (the thing) heard from us, and to whom has (the) Lord's muscle been revealed?
For He went up before Him, as (a) shoot and as (a) sprout out of dry ground;
there was in Him neither appearance, nor grandeur;
and we saw Him, and (there) was not in Him appearance, which might attract us to Him.

He was disdained and belittled in front of people,
(a) man of griefs and having experienced illnesses, and we turned away from Him our face;
He was being disdained, and we counted Him for nothing.

But He took onto Himself our debilities, and bore our illnesses;
yet we thought, that He was (being) stricken, punished and (had been) humiliated by God.
But He was ulcerated for our sins and (was being) tormented for our lawlessnesses;
the punishment of our peace was on Him, and by His wounds we have been healed.
All we were wandering as sheep, we had been seduced each onto his own road;
and (the) Lord has laid on Him (the) sins of us all.

He was tortured, but suffered voluntarily, and opened not His mouth;
as (a) sheep, He was led to slaughter, and,
as (a) lamb before (the one) shearing him mute, so He opened not His mouth.
From bonds and judgement He was taken; but His origin who can elucidate?
for He (was) wrenched from (the) land of (the) living;
for (the) transgression of My people (He) endured execution.

To Him (they) designated (His) grave with (the) evildoers,
but He (was) buried (in a grave) belonging to (a) rich (man),
because He had not committed (a) sin, and (there) was not (a) lie in His mouth.

But to (the) Lord pleasing it was to smite Him, and He delivered Him to torment;
when His soul shall present (a) sacrifice of propitiation, He will see (an) everlasting posterity,
and (the) Lord's will with good success shall be fulfilled by His hand.

On (the) accomplishment of His soul He will look with satisfaction;
through His knowledge He, (the) Righteous One, My Slave, will justify many,
and their sins on Himself (He) will bear.

Therefore I will give Him (a) portion among the great,
and with the strong (He) will divide the booty,
for this, that He delivered His soul unto death, and was numbered with (the) evildoers,
then how He bore on Himself (the) sin of many and for (the) transgressors became intercessor.

[al Hartman]

Steve,

The conversion from Russian to English provides some very inspiring and thought-provoking phraseology.  Thank you very much for going to that effort and for posting it.

Question:  are the parenthetical words absent from, but implied by the Russian text (and if so, what then are the italicized words)?

al

[vernecarty]

Isaiah 53 in Russian: http://www.shalom-peace.com/Isaiah53ru.html

Isaiah 52:13-15; 53:1-12 (translated from Russian, with hope of no serious goofs)


Who has believed (the thing) heard from us, and to whom has (the) Lord's muscle been revealed?

An interesting rendering.
Figures of speech with regard to the work of God are remarkably insightful as regards the exhertion of God's power.

The fashioning of the cosmos is described as being the work of God's fingers...

 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers...,


The creation of man is decribed as the work of God's hands...


  And the Lord God formed  man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.


The work of redemption is described as the bared arm, or as the Russian apparently puts it, God's flexed muscle...neat!

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

Verne

[sfortescue]

Question:  are the parenthetical words absent from, but implied by the Russian text (and if so, what then are the italicized words)?

The italicized words are italicized in the Russian, which means that they are not in the original Hebrew.

The parenthetical words are not in the Russian text.

There are no articles in the Russian language.  Filling in articles is somewhat subject to interpretation, but it's usually clear which article to use based on the context.  Omitted articles in English generally signify generality rather than any specific instance, so they usually can't be left out in English.

In Spanish, subjects may be left out because the verb identifies 1st, 2nd or 3rd person, and singular or plural of the subject.  Russian verbs indicate things about the subject also, but the subject may be left out only in in a context in which the subject has been already stated.  The reason for this is that the isolated usage of a verb without a subject has a different meaning.  For example, the third person plural form without a subject signifies what people in general do rather than what a specific set of persons does.

Some of the parenthesized words show participle types, and sometimes a participle is used without the noun, so that the noun is implied.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

participles --	present	past
active	the studying child	the (was) studying child -- (imperfective verb)
		the having-studied child -- (perfective verb)
passive	the (being) studied book
		the (having been) studied book
adverbial	he fell asleep studying
		he rested, having studied all day

In a couple of places, the word "was" was added because the verb "is" is usually omitted in Russian.

The word "people" in "in front of people" is the plural of person.
In other places, "people" is the word "naród", which has the collective sense of people of a given culture or nationality.  For example, "My people" refers to the Jews.

The phrase, "will have good success", is literally the word, "will well-succeed".
The phrase, "with good success", is literally the word, "well-successfully".

The expression, "endured execution", is interesting.  People don't usually survive execution.  The word "execution" could also be translated "chastisement", except that it doesn't seem to fit the immediate context, which is death.  Since a word like "endured" doesn't appear in other translations, I'm guessing that it isn't actually in the Hebrew.

Verne commented on the use of the word "muscle" instead of the word "arm".  The difficulty in Russian is that the word for "hand" and the word for "arm" are the same, which is "ruká".  This ambiguity is the reason that a different word needed to be used.  Similarly, "nogá" means either "foot" or "leg".

The words "transgression" and "transgressors" mimic the form of the Russian words by having the prefix "trans-" followed by "gress" indicating motion across a boundary.  Using the dictionary translation, these words would be "crime" and "criminals".  The old-fashioned language in the Russian Bible hints that the more literal representation of the form of these words might be closer to their old meanings.

The word "knowledge" in "through His knowledge" refers to perception or experiential knowledge.

At the beginning, there is a progression of elevation: "will be raised and will be lifted up, and will be exalted."  Then "He went up before Him" again indicates upward motion.  Jesus spoke of his being lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness.  This ties in with "through His knowledge" or through seeing Him, like those in the wilderness, who saw the serpent lifted up on a pole and lived.

[al Hartman]

Thanks, Steve!