What Gets Lost When a Translation Explains the Idiom?

Psalm 2:12 provides a helpful example of why comparing translations matters. Some English versions render the opening words of the verse, “Kiss the Son,” while the NASB95 reads, “Do homage to the Son.” At first glance, this may appear to be little more than a difference in lexical choice. One translation uses “kiss,” while another uses “homage.” But the difference actually raises an important question about translation: Should a translation preserve the concrete expression used in the original text, or should it replace that expression with an explanation of what it means?

“Kiss the Son” preserves the imagery of the original expression. “Do homage to the Son” communicates what the action of kissing likely signifies in this context: submission, allegiance, honor, or reverence toward the king. The latter may be immediately clearer to a modern reader. Most contemporary readers do not instinctively associate kissing someone with acknowledging royal authority. In the ancient world, however, such an action could function as a visible expression of loyalty, submission, or homage.

Both renderings therefore provide something valuable. “Do homage” helps the reader understand the probable force of the expression. “Kiss,” however, allows the reader to see how the biblical author chose to communicate that idea. One translation gives us an interpretation of the action; the other preserves the action itself.

That distinction matters.

God did not inspire merely a collection of abstract theological ideas that could be expressed through any number of interchangeable words. He inspired the text in its particular linguistic, grammatical, literary, and rhetorical form. This includes not only the words themselves but also verbal aspect, tense, voice, mood, person, number, and gender; the order of words, phrases, and clauses; patterns of repetition; idiomatic expressions; poetic parallelism; imagery; sound; emphasis; and rhetorical arrangement. Meaning is communicated through all of these features working together.

Consequently, an idiom is not simply decorative packaging that can be discarded once we have extracted its supposed meaning. The image through which an idea is communicated may itself contribute to the meaning, emphasis, emotional force, or literary texture of the passage.

When “kiss” is replaced entirely by “do homage,” the reader gains an explanation but loses the concrete image. The reader understands what the action probably means but may no longer know what the text actually says. That loss may seem insignificant until we begin tracing words, images, and expressions across a book, a collection of books, or the larger canon of Scripture.

This is one of the great benefits of text comparison. When one translation reads “kiss” and another reads “do homage,” the difference alerts us that something is happening beneath the English text. It invites us to slow down and ask several questions:

What expression stands behind these translations? Is the expression idiomatic? What action is being described? What did that action communicate in its historical and cultural setting? Why might one translation preserve the image while another explains its significance? Does the same word or image appear elsewhere in Scripture? Could the author be drawing upon a broader literary, theological, or cultural pattern?

These questions move us beyond asking which translation is more “literal.” The word “literal” is often too imprecise to be helpful. Every translation involves interpretation. No translator simply replaces each Hebrew or Greek word with an English equivalent without making decisions about grammar, syntax, context, idiom, and meaning. A translation that follows the form of the original more closely may help readers see features concealed by a more idiomatic rendering. At other times, a formally similar rendering may confuse English readers or even communicate the wrong meaning because the expression does not function in English as it did in Hebrew or Greek.

The real issue is not whether a translation is “literal.” The better question is: What features of the original does this translation preserve, and what features does it interpret, clarify, reshape, or conceal?

A similar example appears in Mark 1:2. Many English translations read something like, “I send my messenger ahead of you.” That is clear and natural English. The Greek expression, however, is more concretely rendered, “I send my messenger before your face.”

“Ahead of you” communicates the idiomatic sense. The messenger is being sent in advance of someone to prepare the way. But “ahead of you” removes the word “face” from the reader’s view. The translation gives the meaning of the expression while concealing the expression through which that meaning is communicated.

Why might that matter?

It matters because the vocabulary of “face” may connect the passage with other texts, expressions, and discourse patterns. A reader working only from “ahead of you” would never know that “face” appears in the underlying text. As a result, that reader cannot easily search for the same word, observe its repetition, or investigate whether its use contributes to a broader biblical pattern.

This does not mean that every repeated word establishes an intentional intertextual connection. Shared vocabulary is not sufficient by itself to prove that one passage deliberately invokes another. Lexical correspondence opens a line of inquiry; it does not settle the question. Context, thematic correspondence, distinctive wording, source relationships, authorial usage, and discourse function must also be considered.

Nevertheless, we cannot investigate a lexical connection that a translation has completely hidden from us.

This is what can be lost when a translation explains an idiom without preserving any trace of its wording. We may retain the general meaning while losing access to the lexical form, concrete imagery, literary resonance, and potential connections with other passages.

Returning to Psalm 2:12, “do homage” may help the modern reader understand the political and relational significance of the command. But “kiss” places the reader inside the imagery of the text. It presents submission not merely as an abstract concept but as a concrete action. The nations and their rulers are not simply instructed to reconsider their political strategy. They are summoned to acknowledge the authority of God’s anointed king through an embodied expression of allegiance.

The image also forces the interpreter to investigate rather than assume. What kind of kiss is envisioned? What did such a gesture signify? Where else does kissing function as a sign of loyalty, honor, affection, greeting, deceit, reconciliation, or submission? How does the immediate context constrain the meaning? What relationship exists between the command to “kiss” and the warnings to “serve the LORD with fear” and “rejoice with trembling”?

Those questions disappear when the idiom is reduced too quickly to a single explanatory gloss.

This is not an argument that “kiss the Son” is always the superior English translation. Translation requires choices, and different translations serve different purposes. A rendering such as “do homage” may be entirely appropriate when the translator’s primary goal is to communicate the idiomatic force clearly. The point is that readers should recognize what has happened in the translation. “Do homage” is not a different action from “kiss” in this context; it is an interpretation of what the act of kissing signifies.

That recognition changes how we compare translations. Translation differences are not merely obstacles to be resolved by choosing our favorite version. They are opportunities to observe the interpretive decisions translators have made. One translation may preserve a Hebrew or Greek image. Another may make its contextual meaning more explicit. Another may preserve clause order, repetition, or ambiguity. Still another may prioritize natural contemporary English.

By placing translations alongside one another, we can begin to identify these decisions. Some features are visible even before we know Hebrew or Greek. Differences in wording, sentence structure, repeated terms, pronouns, verbal forms, and idiomatic expressions can alert us to matters requiring further study. Later, as we engage the original languages and learn to use interlinears, parsing tools, lexicons, grammars, and discourse resources, many of those features will become clearer.

The goal is not merely to discover what the text means in general. The goal is to attend carefully to what the author wrote and how the author communicated it.

When a translation reads “do homage,” we should ask what image stands behind that interpretation. When a translation reads “ahead of you,” we should ask whether the original expression contains language that English has smoothed away. When translations differ, we should resist the temptation to declare one “literal” and the other “dynamic” and consider the work finished.

Instead, we should ask:

What is visible in this translation?

What has been clarified?

What has been interpreted?

What has been preserved?

And what may have disappeared?

Sometimes what disappears is only an unfamiliar idiom. At other times, it may be the very word, image, or rhetorical feature that connects one part of Scripture with another.