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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nRecently, we received a question from a reader asking why the translation team for the New Living Translation chose to use the word occupy instead of possess. Here is the answer from our Bible editorial team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a very interesting question. In comparison to the handful of other English Bible translation I checked, \u201coccupy\u201d appears to be a unique translation of the underlying Hebrew word, yarash, by the NLT translators at Deut 1:21 (and elsewhere). The Hebrew dictionaries I referenced indicate a range of possible English translations for this word, for example \u201cto seize, dispossess, take possession of, inherit, disinherit, occupy, impoverish, be an heir,\u201d depending on context. One note on \u201coccupy\u201d from the NLT Study Bible at Deut 1:8 could also be helpful to us: \u201cThe land was already Israel\u2019s because God had promised it to the nation\u2019s ancestors centuries earlier. . . . Israel was not seizing new territory from its rightful owners but was taking possession of land occupied by squatters.\u201d From this, I think we can assume the NLT translation team felt that \u201cpossess\u201d and \u201coccupy\u201d are really close synonyms. In terms of the range of meaning of the English words, per M-W.com, definition 3a of occupy is \u201cto take or hold possession or control of\u201d and the example provided is in a military context. It seems like English translations that employ possess are taking advantage of M-W.com definition 2a of that word, which means \u201cto seize and take control of.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In light of all this, my best guess would be that the NLT translators wanted to make sure the English readers understood the nuance of not only ownership (because Israel already owned this land whether they were living in it or not) but also the importance of them physically living in the land, thus occupying it. One important thing to note about the NLT translators is that they place a very high value on making sure that their translation communicates whole ideas to contemporary, American English speakers in terms they understand well. For English usage today, I think \u201coccupy\u201d has strong military associations (I think of \u201ctroops occupying the West Bank\u201d and other similar examples), so it would bring the military aspect of the conquest to the forefront in the mind of the reader. It seems like \u201ctake possession of\u201d could sound archaic, or even a bit vague, to the ear of modern English readers, or it doesn\u2019t quite fully convey the military context of the Bible\u2019s use of yarash. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Look! He has placed the land in front of you. Go and occupy it as the\u00a0Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you. Don\u2019t be afraid! Don\u2019t be discouraged!” Deuteronomy 1:21, NLT Recently, we received a question from a reader asking why the translation team for the New Living Translation chose to use the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,44,50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5588,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5274\/revisions\/5588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmu3.northcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com\/nlt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}