Brackets, parentheses, and insertions
[Words in square brackets]
If this is God’s Name (Jehovah or Yahweh) then the square bracket represent that we have translated a circumlocution.
For everything else, words [in square brackets] are translator insertions and are NOT part of any original manuscript and are therefore NOT part of the inspired text.
We add them to help you to understand what we believe the writer meant to convey, as other languages often have different ways of speaking and can miss out words that are necessary in English.
For example, we may need to add [is] in places that don’t need it in the original language, but sound very weird in English.
Sometimes we may get these insertions wrong.
Word in [[double square brackets]]
These are added by us to show that the words are missing from our source manuscript, and we’ve used another manuscript to fill in the missing words.
(Words in parentheses)
These words are original. We added the parentheses because it seems like the writer or speaker added these particular words as an aside comment (which is something we all do sometimes). Therefore we have added the parentheses markings to help the reader see it.
The original languages did not have parentheses markings, but the words within them ARE original.
Did we always get it right? Probably not.
Look!
This word, Look!, is not actually saying to look at something, it’s a grammatical feature (a ‘particle’ or ‘interjection’) telling you to pay attention, even describing how the sentence is to be read.
It’s a bit like our ! character, but it comes at the start of a sentence, and doesn’t always mean to exclaim something. You don’t have to read these, feel free to skip them, if you wish.
Most Bibles translate it as ‘Behold!’ – but in modern English, that sounds like you’re trapped in a medieval fantasy novel.
Long dashes – and ellipses …
These only show the reader where to insert a long pause. Unlike in some other translation projects, these do not indicate where a word is missing or where a spurious word has been removed. In our project, all spurious words are grayed-out instead.
(!)
This indicates sarcasm. Of course, as translators, we’re only making an educated guess as to where an ancient writer is using sarcasm, so we may get it wrong at times.
There aren’t many of these.
Large dots
These are added by us to show that a long time has passed or that the subject has entirely changed. This are just to help you understand the text better.
Words grayed-out
These words are suspected as being spurious.
Sometimes we add them to our text in their greyed-out state, even if they aren’t found in our source manuscript, just to show you what people normally read in other translations. That way, you’re aware of what other people may have seen.
- See our list of spurious words for more information.