What Varying Bible Translations Say

I made an interesting discovery as I was doing a recent Bible study on God’s Grace for our church community group.

Differences in Bible Translations

The New International Version (NIV) Study Bible is my go-to translation for studying the Bible. It is a thought for thought or what is called a “dynamic equivalence” translation. 

The New Living Translation (NLT) is the Bible I am currently going through for my daily devotions. It is also a thought for thought translation but it tries to use a more clearly understandable translation of confusing words. It then includes the literal translation of the text in the footnote. 

I decided to use the New Living Translation of Isaiah as I prepared for the Bible study. (Honestly it was because I was being lazy and just felt like using the version that was sitting in front of me instead of getting up and walking into the next room. Sad. I know.) But doing so led to an interesting discovery and some “Deep Thoughts with Dr. Tanya” that I would like to share with you. 

One of the passages that was used in the grace study was Isaiah 30:18-20. I will just address verse 18 here so as to not complicate things more than necessary. 

In the New Living Translation of Isaiah 30:18 it reads 

“So the Lord must wait for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion. For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for his help.”

The use of the word “must” in verse 18 jumped out at me. God must wait for us to come to Him? Is that true?

I knew that “must” did not agree with what I remembered from the NIV which I know much better because I have read it many times. In fact the NIV seems to suggest the opposite of the NLT translation. 

Isaiah 30:18 in the New International Version reads

“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!”

Before we look any further into these two different translations, let me give you some background on these verses. At this point in time God’s people had split into two separate groups - the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. This passage in Isaiah is spoken to God’s people in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. They have rebelled (once again) and sought a treaty with Egypt to help them fend off the Assyrians who have conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and are likely headed back to conquer the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Instead of learning from the fate of Israel, Judah is once again not trusting in the Lord to save them.

The NLT says God will “wait for you to come” and the NIV says God “longs to be gracious to you”. I think the word “wait” and the word “longs” are trying to translate the same word. They both have the idea of things taking a while and God biding time while this happens.

It is the word “must” in the NLT version that concerns me. In the NLT it reads “So the Lord must wait for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion. Using the word “must” implies that only if the people ask will God be gracious. 

In contrast the NIV states that the Lord “longs to be gracious” to His people. Unlike the NLT which seems to set up a criterion that God’s people must meet before He will show his love and compassion, in the NIV He seems eager to be gracious to His people.

So Which Version is Correct?

I decided to take a look at Isaiah 30:18 in some other versions of the Bible to see which of the above translations was more accurate. 

The King James Version (KJV) is closer to a "word for word” translation or what is called a “formal equivalence”. It reads

“And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.”

The KJV uses the word “wait” in verse 18 like the NLT but it does not use the word “must” thus suggesting that God’s acting with grace and compassion is not dependent on the people coming to Him first. 

I then looked at Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible that is based on the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament. This version is a full word for word translation and is not a good version to use for your daily reading because it is very awkward. But it is very helpful for those who do not speak the original language of the Scriptures but would like to know the precise meaning of a particular word. In Isaiah 30: 18 it says 

“And therefore doth wait Jehovah to favor. And therefore he is exalted to pity you, for a God of judgement is Jehovah. O the blessedness of all waiting for Him.”

Like the NLT and the KJV, Young's Literal Translation says that God (Jehovah) waits. But, like the NIV and the KJV, the Young's Literal Translation does not say that He “must” wait. 

In fact, in looking at each of these translations (and some others as well that I won’t include here so as not to confuse things any further) the word “must” does not appear to be in the Hebrew text at all. It seems to be added by the New Living Translation authors.

I then asked Google AI “Does the NLT of the Bible agree with Reformed Theology?” It told me:

“No, the NLT does not fully align with Reformed theology, though some Reformed scholars were involved in the project... The NLT… can lean toward Arminianism, especially compared to more formal translations.”  and “Some critics point to specific translation choices in the NLT that they say add commentary and favor certain theological interpretations over others.” 

The reason that the word “must” jumped out at me in the NLT is that if God requires that we must come to him in order for Him to show us His love and compassion, we are in big trouble. We are all dead in our sins and transgressions until God softens our heart and draws us toward himself. (See Ephesians 2:1.) Even as believers we are dependent on the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit to make us see our continuing daily need for Him and for His mercy. (See Psalm 139:23-24.)

Reformed theology is often represented by the word TULIP where T stands for “total depravity”, U stands for “unconditional election”, L stands for “limited atonement”, I stands for “irresistible grace”, and P stands for “perseverance of the saints”. I am not going to take the time here to go into an extended explanation of each aspect of Reformed theology. (To learn more about Reformed theology go to Ligonier Ministries.) 

Suffice it to say that the word “must’ in the New Living Translation seems to go against the T, U, and I in TULIP. The need for man to do something before God will show grace does not agree with mankind being totally depraved and unable to do anything good to earn God’s grace. It also does not agree with the idea that men are unconditionally elected; that is God chooses whom he will elect independent of anything we can do. And finally it does not agree with the idea of irresistible grace because it implies that when God chooses to show us His grace, we can choose to resist it.

Should We Not Use the New Living Translation?

I have been greatly enjoying reading through the New Living Translation. I have read the first 5 books of the Old Testament and the first 4 ½ books of the New Testament so far and this is the first time that something in the translation has jumped out at me as being wrong. I have enjoyed reading it because it brings some complicated verses to life in a new way and tries to eliminate some older confusing or distracting words by replacing them with more contemporary ones. 

I have read the NIV so many times that it was becoming rote to me so I felt like I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was reading. Several years ago I had a pastor tell me that he liked to read the Bible in different versions so that it would stay fresh to him and so he could gain new insights that he had not seen before. The NLT is providing this freshness to me.

I definitely recommend this practice if you have read through the same Bible version many times. Since I decided to do this after reading the NIV over and over, I have read the New American Standard Bible, the English Standard Version and now I am reading the NLT Study Bible. I have read a study Bible version of each of them. The NASB version was by John MacArthur and the ESV version was the Reformation Study Bible with R.C. Sproul as its General Editor. I heartily recommend both of these versions with their companion study Bibles to you. 

No one is ever going to be completely happy with any Bible translation. We have to remember that men and their wisdom are flawed. God’s word is perfect but our translations of it are not. I also think that there is a different criterion in what Bible you read when you are doing a Bible study versus what one you read when you are doing your daily devotional reading.

What Can We Learn From These Varying Translations?

Doing this comparison of the NLT with the NIV and KJV and Young’s is a good reminder of the importance of God’s grace. Look again at the subtle but extremely important difference between 

“the Lord must wait for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion”. 

and when we simply remove the word “must” and it becomes

“the Lord waits for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion”.

The NIV puts the greatest emphasis on this difference among the four translations we are using when it says “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you.” Perhaps this too is adding a bit to the Hebrew - this time in the Reformed direction. But it certainly fits better with the rest of the Bible. 

I am so grateful that it is not the case that the Lord must wait for us to come to Him but that He instead longs to be gracious to us. This is true both for believers and unbelievers. Whether we are first coming to know God or have been a believer for many years, the new birth and the further growth that we experience depend entirely on God’s gracious pursuit of us.

It may seem to us that we are the ones seeking for and reaching out to God and finding Him but the truth is that if it weren’t for Him choosing to reach out to us, we would never seek Him or find Him on our own. 

We are so blinded by sin and pride that if it were not for His desire to have a relationship with us and His planning before the creation of the world to send His perfect Son to die in our place and His choosing us to show us grace we would never come to know Him. 

Fortunately we are blessed with a God who is perfect and gracious. It is not the case that he “must wait for us to come to Him”. Instead He “longs to be gracious to” us. Amen.