The Wartburg Project

October 30th, 2025

131. Different Translations of Parallel Passages

Thank you for your hard work and dedication. I have a question regarding the following two passages.

Any insight into why these verses are translated differently, while the Greek in both instances is identical? I appreciate your help.

Though we make an effort to translate the various words in lists of synonyms in a way that makes it clear which Hebrew and Greek words are used in given passages, and our rubrics often suggest a default translation for given terms, these are not rigid rules that do not allow exceptions based on context or for reflecting English idiomatic phrases. Sometimes the context surrounding the identically worded passages located in two different biblical books may require a different word order or wording of the passage in English. Sometimes the differences might just be stylistic.

Our main goal as translators is not to make an interlinear for translating the Hebrew and Greek (there are other translations that have that as a goal), but our focus is on readability and on providing insights to readers. Concerning long passages that appear in two different places in the Bible that are identical or very similar in wording, a note at the beginning of 2 Chronicles explains our policy and the reason for it. “In those passages of Chronicles which are close parallels to passages in Kings, the EHV does not try to make the two translations word-for-word matches, even in phrases in which the Hebrew wording may be identical. The two translations, which were made independently, have been compared, and the wording has been harmonized in regard to key terms, but some of the individual shading of the two translations may be preserved, in order to give the reader different insights into the text.” This is not essentially any different than the many cases in which we have one translation in the main text and a different one in the footnote. We recognize that there can be more than one good way to translate a passage, and thoughtful readers can benefit from both.

Notice that our footnote in Chronicles refers to texts that are “close parallels.” Even in cases in which longer passages are essentially the same in two different places in the Bible, the two cases are usually not identical. For example, there are passages in the psalms called doublets that are essentially the same psalm, but there are differences in wording in the two occurrences. Some of these differences actually change the thought a bit; more of them are simply different words or textual variants. In such cases the EHV Study Bible mentions the most significant differences in footnotes.

I suspect that in the example you mention the difference is simply stylistic, based on the decisions of the two translators. 

For further discussion see the article “To Sync or Not to Sync” on our Wartburg Project website.