Gwen Frangs / Cambridge, UK / 13 February 2022
In the course of writing articles for my website Topics in Biblical Studies, I have come across certain mistranslations in the NIV:
Lord of Hosts is replaced by Lord Almighty in Isaiah 6:1-7
The prophet Isaiah described seeing Yahweh God of Hosts as follows:
6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Isaiah 6:1-7 NIV
Unfortunately, the words ‘Lord Almighty’ which are used by the NIV translator in Isaiah 6:3 and Isaiah 6:5 do not actually appear in the original Hebrew text. If you take a look at the original Hebrew it says יְהוָ֥ה צְבָא֖וֹת which should be translated as ‘Lord of Hosts’. Check it out in the Interlinear Bible at this link Isaiah 6.
Therefore, the seraphim are calling out: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts’ in verse 3 and Isaiah says: ‘….my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts’ in verse 5. They are not calling out: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty’ and Isaiah does not say ‘….my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty’ as the NIV translator would have us believe. The mistranslation is covering up something very significant.
If you read Hosea 12:4-5 in the original Hebrew, you will see that the title ‘the Lord of the Hosts’ is used as the name for the Angel that Jacob wrestled with. Check it out in the Interlinear Bible at this link Hosea 12:4-5. Therefore, the Angel Whom Jacob wrestled with and the Person that Isaiah saw on the throne in Heaven are one and the same. The Old Testament is making it clear that an Angel is seated on the throne of Heaven.
I discuss this in my articles: The Holy Spirit and The Holy Spirit is El Shaddai.
Assur replaced by Assyria in Ezekiel 31:3
The name ‘Assur’ is what appears in the original Hebrew in Ezekiel 31:3. However, for some reason the New International Version has chosen to replace the word Assur in Ezekiel 31:3 with the word ‘Assyria’. A small group of Bible translators have kept ‘Assur’ in the text. For example:
I agree with these translators. The reason why I agree with these translators is because within the context of the passage it makes greater sense that Assur refers to the ancient capital city Assur rather than to Assyria. This is because Assyria is a nation and too many trees are described in verses 9 and 10 as being in the Garden of Eden for the trees to be nations.
The mistranslation of Assur being replaced by Assyria obscures the fact that the two trees in Genesis could also be seen to be cities within the context of Biblical literature. Please see my article: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a City for more about this. It also conflicts with what Paul says in Acts 17:26.
In the New International Version Acts 17:26 reads as:
From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.
Acts 17:26 NIV
However, the word ‘man’ is not present in the original Greek text. It has been added in by the Bible translators. The original Greek text reads:
He made then of one, every nation of men to dwell upon all the face of the earth, having determined the appointed times and the boundaries of the habitation of them.
Acts 17:26 Bible Hub Interlinear
Therefore, we see that the apostle Paul was not saying that every nation came from one man, but that every nation came from one nation. He understood that there was a nation of people living in the Garden of Eden and not just two people.
B’reishit has been translated as ‘in the beginning’ instead of as ‘in the beginning of’
The first word in Genesis 1:1 in the original Hebrew is בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית (b’reishit). According to the New International Version Bible translators בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית should be translated as ‘In the beginning’. However, according to ancient Hebrew grammar the word must be translated as ‘In the beginning of’. The word ‘of’ must be there for it to be a correct translation because there is a vowel called “sh’va” under the letter bet in the word b’reishit. A correct translation of the word occurs in Jeremiah 26:1: “B’reishit mamlechut Yehoyakim,“ “In the beginning of the kingdom of Jehoiakim.” Jewish scholars have been struggling for centuries to try and understand why it says, ‘In the beginning of…’ instead of just ‘In the beginning’. The New International translators decided to ignore the ‘of’ and to translate the word ‘In the beginning.’
I tackled this mistranslation in an article entitled: The Big Bang in Genesis 1:1
The preposition ‘in’ is translated as the preposition ‘as’ in Exodus 6:2
The New International Version translated Exodus 6:2-3 as:
2 God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty,[a] but by my name the Lord[b] I did not make myself fully known to them.
Exodus 6:2-3 NIV (El Shaddai is again replaced by ‘God Almighty’)
In Exodus 6:2-3 the preposition on the word בְּאֵ֣ל means either ‘in’, ‘at’ or ‘with’ in the ancient Hebrew (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%91%D6%BE). It does not mean ‘as’ because כְּ is the prefix which means ‘as’ (8af3842462324e4d5443b28852f9368b3e9aa672.html). If you look at the blue parts of speech under the original Hebrew text the preposition is listed as Prep-b. Prep-b, according to the Hebrew parsing, means ‘in’ (https://biblehub.com/hebrewparse.htm). Therefore, the verse does not read:
….. I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai…
Rather, the verse reads as:
….I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob in El Shaddai…
I have explored this mistranslation in the articles: The Holy Spirit and The Holy Spirit is El Shaddai.