Palm Sunday is here — the day in many churches when Sunday School children parade into church waving palm branches (or here in the cool Pacific Northwest, fern branches), much to the older church members’ delight.
It’s a lovely tradition, though its cute factor may not fully represent the intensity of the day it commemorates — Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem — just a few days before his brutal crucifixion. Jesus himself, of course, was only too painfully aware of the contrast, and that the jubilant crowds would turn on him in a matter of days.
To understand the nuances as Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem unfolds, let’s have a look at how different languages portray this day in the Bible. These examples come from the freely available Translation Insights & Perspectives (TIPs) tool, an interactive library of data that gives us a deeper understanding of how people from around the world talk to and about God.
The Donkey
Many sermons have explained that the donkey Jesus chose to ride symbolizes both victory and humility as laid out in Zechariah 9:9. And most of us know the stereotypical characteristics of a donkey, like their long ears and proverbial stubbornness. But reading the story in languages from cultures where donkeys are an integral part of daily life can help us understand deeper layers to the story.
For example, when Jesus sends two of his disciples to find a “colt that had never been ridden” in Luke 19:30 and Mark 11:2, this lengthy descriptive phrase in English comes from an equally lengthy phrase in Greek (“pōlon eph’ hon oudeis oupō anthrōpōn ekathisen”).
Why?
Because neither language has a single term to describe such an animal. Speakers of Kalmyk in Southern Russia, however, do have a specialized word — “arkhlata“ — for exactly that concept: “a colt that has never been ridden.” Through their precise language and cultural experience, the 80,000 speakers of Kalmyk therefore have a much easier way to immediately visualize the unpredictability and unruliness of Jesus’ never-ridden young donkey.
Arhuaco speakers — a language spoken by about 15,000 people in Colombia — also intimately understand the wildness of Jesus’ transportation, so the Arhuaco translators clarify in their translation that when the disciples sat Jesus on the colt, they “held the colt steady.” Is this an unwarranted addition to their translation? The translators made a judgment call that if they didn’t insert that explanation, the Arhuaco Bible readers would assume that Jesus had performed a miracle by getting up on that ornery unbroken donkey by himself.
The Branches
The previous examples illustrate how the choice of vocabulary is determined by the surrounding culture. Sometimes, however, the grammatical rules of a language determine what needs to be communicated and how.
Chilcotin, spoken by 4,000 people in British Columbia, Canada, forced its translators to communicate how the people cut branches as specified in Matthew and Mark. This language requires its speakers to specify the tools used in any action (like English needs to specify whom or what I love when I say “I love…”). After researching the tools that were most likely used in Biblical times, the Chilcotin Bible translation team had the Israelites cut the palms with a knife-like tool — “xadajelht’az.”
Only the Gospel of John mentions that the branches came from palm trees, even though palms don’t generally thrive in the high altitude of Jerusalem. If the crowds indeed used palms, the date palm trees in question grow between 33 and 66 feet, with the fronds all the way at the top of the tree. A number of languages try to side-step the specification of palm branches, including Alekano of Papua New Guinea, which idiomatically calls them “leafy decorative things.”
Hosanna!
As Jesus enters Jerusalem, the crowd cries out “Hosanna!” The only use of this term in the New Testament is in connection with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but it is actually a transliteration from the Old Testament. It comes from Psalm 118:25 and declares “Please, save us” or hō·wō·šî·‘āh nā in Hebrew, which in turn became Hōsanna in Greek and eventually in English.
Many languages transliterate the term as well, but some translate it into their own words of high praise, such as:
- “Happily let him come”
- “Here is this one who will save us, this one who comes”
- “Let him be saved”
- “God will help us now”
- “Let him be praised!”
Matthew 21:10 also tells us that as Jesus entered Jerusalem, the city was stirred or in turmoil. Other languages use terms like “disturbed,” “excited,” “startled,” “in-an-uproar,” “(the people were) so surprised,” or “overwhelmed.” Biblical artist Sadao Watanabe translates this artistically into a serene, possibly sad, and almost other-worldly Jesus riding through what truly looks like turmoil:
Image taken with permission from the SadaoHanga Catalogue.
The Order of Events
If you read the whole story of the triumphal entry in the Gospel of John, the order of events can seem a bit jumbled. In the other gospels, Jesus requests the colt, receives it, and rides it into Jerusalem as the crowd throws cloaks and branches on the road before him. But in John, the crowd converges with branches before Jesus sits on the donkey. In our language and culture, we (consciously or subconsciously) recognize this as a way to heighten the tension of the unfolding events, but translators into other languages saw it as a potential stumbling block and reordered the story.
For the 1,800 speakers of Wichí Lhamtés Nocten in Bolivia, the translators rendered the narrative with Jesus first mounting the donkey, then the disciples telling the crowd about Lazarus and the crowd excitedly responding by celebrating Jesus’ entry. This is followed by the disciples’ confusion and the Pharisees’ frustration. You can find this “logical” order of events in this entry which more closely follows the way the other gospel writers tell it.
Peace for Palm Sunday
In conclusion, let me wish you a blessed Holy Week with the 15,000 speakers of Western Bukidnon Manobo in the Philippines: “Our relationship to God is now peaceful!” (Luke 19:38).
The crowds who shouted about peace in Heaven amidst the chaos and drama of Jesus riding into Jerusalem didn’t fully understand what they were saying. They couldn’t know of the horrific things that were about to unfold — but neither did they know about the glorious events that would take place in exactly one week’s time. From our vantage point, we know that the ultimate outcome of all the events of Holy Week is that our relationship to God truly is now peaceful. Hosanna!
Explore every facet of Holy Week with Bible Gateway’s guides to the most pivotal events in the Christian calendar:
- Follow along with all the people, places, and events of Holy Week.
- Walk with Jesus on a transformative journey through his Passion (and get a free Passion Week devotional!).
- Read Bible verses, gospel passages, and more for each day of Holy Week.
And to go even deeper with all those Bible verses, read them in dozens of English translations at Bible Gateway, hundreds of languages (translated back into English) at TIPs, and through tons of study resources with Bible Gateway Plus — start your free 14-day trial today!
Jost Zetzsche is a translator and the curator of Translation Insights & Perspectives (tips.translation.bible) for the United Bible Societies. His writing has appeared in Christianity Today, The Christian Century, and MultiLingual.
