Linguistic Gap Analysis: Malachi (English → French)

0. Scope and Method

This analysis surveys all four chapters of Malachi against the destination language’s existing theological vocabulary — both the Romans-baseline translation_memory.json (reused terms) and this curriculum’s own new-term inventory (08_core_glossary.md, bible_term_registry.json). It identifies:

1. Doctrine vocabulary matrix — for each of the curriculum’s five doctrines, what French terms are available, where they are weak, and what strategy compensates.
2. True lexical gaps — Hebrew concepts with no adequate single French word.
3. Crowded semantic neighborhoods — French words already carrying multiple theological loads that Malachi adds to, requiring “fencing” (disambiguating notes, fixed occurrence-by-occurrence glosses, or typographic conventions).
4. Transliteration vs. paraphrase decisions — where a Hebrew form was considered for direct transliteration and why it was accepted or rejected.
5. A ranked list of this letter’s highest-risk ambiguities, to drive Step 9-11 review-routing priority.

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A. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

A1. God’s Unchanging Love for His People

Aspect	Detail
Primary passages	1:2-5; 3:6-7; 3:16-18
Available French terms	”aimer / amour” (ahavti), “j’ai haï” (saneti), “alliance”, “moi, le SEIGNEUR, je ne change pas” (lo shaniti), “un peuple précieux” (segullah), [TM REUSE] “élection”
Weaknesses	French “amour” is the same word for romantic, familial, and covenantal love; nothing in the bare lexeme signals elective, covenantal love as opposed to sentiment. “Je ne change pas” risks being read as an abstract philosophical immutability claim (cf. baseline’s Enlightenment-deist caution on “providence”) rather than relational, covenant-keeping constancy. “J’ai haï” risks a reader hearing arbitrary divine malice rather than the Hebrew comparative-preference idiom.
Recommended strategy	Gloss “amour” with explicit covenantal qualifiers in teaching material (“l’amour d’alliance,” “l’amour électif de Dieu”) rather than altering the base-text rendering. Mandatory explanatory note pairing “je vous ai aimés” / “j’ai haï” as a single rhetorical unit (comparative-preference idiom, cf. Gen 29:31), never presented separately. Cross-link 1:2-3 explicitly to the baseline’s High-risk “élection” entry, since Romans 9:13 quotes this very verse — French readers moving between the two curricula must not perceive two different doctrines.

A2. Corrupt Worship and a Broken Covenant

Aspect	Detail
Primary passages	1:6-14; 2:1-9; 2:17
Available French terms	”sacrificateurs” (kohanim), “offrande” (minchah), “sacrifice” (zevach), “pain souillé”, “honneur”/“crainte” (kavod/mora, human sense), “temple” (heikhal), “l’alliance avec Lévi”, “justice” (mishpat, 2:17)
Weaknesses	”Prêtres” (the naturally reflexive cognate) imports Catholic sacramental-mediation connotations foreign to Malachi’s own covenant-fidelity critique. “Temple” collides with French Protestant usage, where “temple” names the Protestant church building, not a historical Israelite sanctuary. “Offrande” and “sacrifice” can blur in casual French if not held lexically apart, erasing the minchah/zevach distinction Malachi itself maintains. “Honneur” and “gloire” share a Hebrew root (kavod) but must stay lexically separated (human vs. divine sense) or 1:6’s father/son rhetorical logic collapses.
Recommended strategy	Lock “sacrificateurs” (never “prêtres”) as this curriculum’s fixed convention, parallel to the baseline’s Église/temple distinction. Add a contextual anchor note wherever “temple” occurs, clarifying it denotes the historical Jerusalem sanctuary. Maintain “offrande”/“sacrifice” as a fixed pair throughout. Keep “honneur” (1:6, human) and “gloire” (1:11, 1:14, divine) strictly separated — never substitute one for the other.

A3. Faithfulness in Tithing and Marriage

Aspect	Detail
Primary passages	2:10-16; 3:7-12
Available French terms	”dîme” (ma’aser), “voler/frauder” (qava), “bénédiction” (berakhah), “l’épouse de ton alliance” (eshet beritekha), “être infidèle/agir traîtreusement” (bagad), “répudier/le divorce” (shalach)
Weaknesses	”Dîme” is theologically correct but culturally loaded: French readers associate it first with the compulsory feudal-era Church tax abolished in the 4 August 1789 decrees, an association carrying live anticlerical resonance, not a voluntary covenant-faithfulness principle. “Bénédiction” risks collapsing into the baseline’s “grâce” doctrine (explicitly defined there as never a reward for merit); Malachi 3:10 operates within an Old Covenant blessing-for-obedience framework that, if untaught, invites a prosperity-gospel misreading. The Hebrew of 2:16 (shalach) is genuinely textually disputed (subject/object ambiguity yields both “I hate divorce” and “the man who hates and divorces” as defensible readings); no French rendering resolves this without an editorial choice.
Recommended strategy	Teaching material must proactively name and defuse the dîme/Ancien-Régime association before presenting the doctrine. Every occurrence of “bénédiction” near tithing content requires an explicit teaching note distinguishing Old Covenant conditional blessing from New Covenant unconditional grace — this is not a contradiction of Romans but a different covenant administration. Mandatory human theologian review for 2:16 regardless of which construal is adopted; record the alternative reading in the segment cache per the baseline’s ambiguity-handling protocol.

A4. The Coming Messenger and the Day of the Lord

Aspect	Detail
Primary passages	3:1-5 (core passage); 4:1-3, 5-6
Available French terms	”mon messager”, “le messager de l’alliance”, “le Seigneur” (adon), “le SEIGNEUR” / “le SEIGNEUR des armées” (YHWH / YHWH Tzevaot), “le jour du SEIGNEUR”, “feu de fondeur”, “savon de blanchisseur”, “fournaise ardente”, “soleil de justice”, “la guérison dans ses ailes”, “Élie le prophète”
Weaknesses	Malachi 3:1 alone stacks four distinct referents in one verse — YHWH, “le Seigneur” (adon), “le messager de l’alliance,” and “mon messager” — using closely related French vocabulary (“Seigneur”/“SEIGNEUR”, “messager”). Without a fixed typographic convention (small capitals for YHWH), the distinctions collapse on the page even where they are clear in Hebrew. “Justice” recurs here in yet a third distinct sense (soleil de justice, 4:2 — messianic radiance), compounding the mishpat (2:17) and cultic-tsedaqah (3:3) senses already noted, and now interacting with the Romans-baseline forensic sense as well. Metallurgical/textile trade imagery (refiner’s fire, fuller’s soap) is largely opaque to modern urban French readers.
Recommended strategy	Enforce the small-capitals “SEIGNEUR” (YHWH) vs. regular-case “Seigneur” (adon) typographic convention across every output format (web, PDF, print handouts) — flag this as a Phase 2 formatting requirement, not merely a translation choice. Provide an explicit two-figure teaching diagram for 3:1 distinguishing forerunner (“mon messager”) from the Lord/messenger-of-the-covenant figure. Attach a mandatory disambiguating footnote to every “justice” occurrence in this book identifying which of the (now four, counting Romans) senses is active. Add brief explanatory glosses for refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap in first-occurrence teaching notes.

A5. The Call to Repentance before the Great Day

Aspect	Detail
Primary passages	3:7; 3:13-18; 4:4-6
Available French terms	”revenir à moi / se repentir” (shuv), “le livre du souvenir”, “ceux qui craignent le SEIGNEUR”, “le juste / le méchant”, “tourner/ramener le cœur des pères vers les fils”, “anathème / destruction totale” (cherem) vs. “maudit” (arur, ch.1)
Weaknesses	”Se repentir” is institutionally loaded in French Catholic usage (the sacrament of penance/confession); “se convertir” carries missionary-conversion overtones absent from shuv’s relational, spatial “turning back” image. Neither perfectly captures the Hebrew. If cherem (4:6) and arur (1:14) are both rendered “maudit,” the book’s deliberate escalation in covenantal severity from chapter 1 to chapter 4 is lost.
Recommended strategy	Use “revenir à [moi]” as the primary rendering (retaining relational-journey imagery), with “se repentir” as an acceptable secondary gloss only where the surrounding French reads awkwardly otherwise — never let “se repentir” imply sacramental confession. Keep the same verb family across 3:7 and 4:6 to preserve the book’s structural root-echo. Reserve “maudit” exclusively for arur (1:14) and “anathème/destruction totale” exclusively for cherem (4:6); never interchange.

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B. Full-Book Chapter Coverage Confirmation

Chapter	Content reviewed	New/load-bearing terms surfaced	Status
Malachi 1 (1:1-14)	Book title (mal’akhi); YHWH’s love for Jacob vs. Esau/Edom; corrupt priestly offerings (polluted bread, blemished animals); rhetorical honor/fear address to “sacrificateurs”; positive universal vision of “the nations” honoring God’s name; “the great King”; formal curse (arur) on deceitful worshippers	i_have_loved_you, i_have_hated_esau, edom, honor_kavod_human, fear_reverence_mora, polluted_bread, blemished_animals, great_king, the_nations_goyim, cursed_arur, priests_kohanim, offering_minchah, sacrifice_zevach, glory_divine	Reviewed — load-bearing
Malachi 2 (2:1-17)	Covenant with Levi broken; priestly corruption escalated; treacherous dealing (bagad) launched as the chapter’s structuring verb; marriage as covenant (“wife of your covenant”); the disputed divorce statement (2:16); closing rhetorical question naming God “a God of justice” (mishpat)	covenant_with_levi, deal_treacherously_bagad, wife_of_covenant, divorce_shalach, justice_mishpat	Reviewed — load-bearing, contains two of the book’s four Critical-tier clusters
Malachi 3 (3:1-18)	Core passage 3:1-4: messenger, ha’adon, messenger of the covenant, refining/purifying imagery, “sons of Levi” purified, pleasing offering restored; 3:6: divine unchangeableness anchor verse; 3:7-12: call to return, robbing God, tithing, windows of heaven, blessing; 3:13-18: book of remembrance, those who fear the LORD, treasured possession, righteous/wicked distinction	lord_adon, lord_of_hosts, my_messenger, messenger_of_the_covenant, day_of_the_lord (3:2), refiners_fire, fullers_soap, purify_refine_levites, sons_of_levi, righteousness_cultic, pleasing_agreeable, prepare_the_way, suddenly, who_can_endure, i_the_lord_do_not_change, return_repent_shuv, rob_qava, tithe_maaser, storehouse, windows_of_heaven, blessing_berakhah, book_of_remembrance, those_who_fear_the_lord, treasured_possession, righteous_wicked	Reviewed — the curriculum’s theological anchor chapter; highest term density
Malachi 4 (4:1-6 English numbering; = 3:19-24 in Hebrew/Jewish editions)	Day of the LORD as consuming fire (burning oven) vs. 3:2-3’s purifying fire; sun of righteousness with healing wings for those who fear God’s name; exhortation to remember the Law of Moses; promise of Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible Day; turning of fathers’ and children’s hearts; the cherem threat if reconciliation fails	day_of_the_lord (4:1, 4:5), burning_oven, sun_of_righteousness, healing_in_wings, law_of_moses, elijah_the_prophet, turn_hearts_fathers_children, cherem_utter_destruction	Reviewed — load-bearing; escalates and closes the book’s fire/messenger/repentance threads

Coverage note: No chapter of Malachi is without doctrinally load-bearing vocabulary; all four chapters contribute directly to at least one of the five curriculum doctrines. The Hebrew/Jewish chapter-numbering variant (3:19-24 vs. English 4:1-6) is flagged here for citation-format awareness but does not affect this curriculum, which follows the English/LXX four-chapter division consistent with standard French Bible tradition (Segond, TOB, Bible de Jérusalem all number Malachi 1-4 as in English).

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C. Missing Vocabulary: True Lexical Gaps

These are Hebrew concepts for which French has no single adequate word, requiring periphrasis, compound phrasing, or explanatory apparatus rather than a simple one-to-one substitution:

1. segullah (3:17, “treasured possession”) — French has no single noun combining personal royal property + treasured/precious + chosen-out-of-many. “Un peuple précieux” or “un trésor particulier” are necessary periphrases; neither alone carries the full ANE royal-ownership resonance the Hebrew does. Recommend pairing the chosen phrase with a one-time explanatory teaching note (cf. Exodus 19:5 cross-reference).
2. bagad (2:10, 2:14-16, “deal treacherously”) — no single French verb fuses covenant-breach and personal betrayal in one lexeme the way bagad does. The two-word phrase “être infidèle / agir traîtreusement” is a necessary compromise; translators must resist the temptation to vary the phrasing for stylistic reasons, since Malachi’s argument depends on the same root recurring at each occurrence.
3. esh metzaref / borit mekhabbesim (3:2, “refiner’s fire,” “fuller’s soap”) — these are gaps not in vocabulary availability (French has “feu de fondeur,” “savon de blanchisseur”) but in lived cultural familiarity: modern urban French readers no longer encounter metal-refining or cloth-fulling as everyday trades, so the images land as archaic rather than vivid. This is a comprehension gap requiring explanatory apparatus, not a translation-choice gap.
4. heshiv lev-avot al banim (4:6, “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children”) — the Hebrew causative verb form (heshiv, from shuv) has no single French causative verb; the phrase must be periphrastic (“tourner/ramener le cœur… vers…”). The gap is grammatical (French lacks a directly parallel morphological causative here) rather than lexical.
5. massa (1:1, “oracle/burden”) as a genre marker — French has no living theological-genre noun that carries both “a weighty utterance” and “a formally introduced prophetic pronouncement” the way massa does for the ancient reader; “oracle” (the TOB/BJ convention) is the best available compromise but loses the root sense of “a thing carried/lifted.”

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D. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing

Malachi does not primarily introduce brand-new French vocabulary; it instead loads additional senses onto words the Romans baseline has already fixed, or onto common French words that collide with strong extra-biblical cultural associations. Each of the following requires active “fencing” — a disambiguating note, a locked lexical pairing, or a typographic convention — rather than a one-time translation choice.

French word/family	Competing senses now sharing it	Fencing mechanism
justice	(1) mishpat — God’s judicial governance (2:17); (2) tsedaqah-cultic — right conduct of purified worshippers (3:3); (3) tsedaqah-messianic — the “sun of righteousness” (4:2); (4) [inherited from Romans] forensic, imputed righteousness by faith apart from works (Rom 1:17, 3:24)	Mandatory disambiguating translator’s note at every Malachi occurrence, explicitly naming which sense is active and explicitly denying the Romans forensic sense is in view at 2:17, 3:3, and 4:2 unless a genuine messianic/Christological cross-reference is being drawn (4:2 only)
Seigneur / SEIGNEUR	(1) YHWH, the covenant name (throughout Malachi); (2) adon, “the Lord” of 3:1, a related but textually distinct figure; (3) [inherited from Romans] kyrios, Christ’s exclusive Lordship (Rom 10:9)	Typographic convention: small capitals “SEIGNEUR” for YHWH, regular case “Seigneur” for adon; explicit teaching note in Malachi 3:1 material cross-referencing but not conflating the Romans kyrios usage
maudit / anathème	(1) arur — a formal but lesser covenantal curse (1:14); (2) cherem — total covenantal destruction (4:6)	Lock “maudit” to arur only and “anathème / destruction totale” to cherem only; never interchange, to preserve the book’s escalating severity arc
prêtres / sacrificateurs	(1) Catholic ordained, sacramental priesthood (the reflexive French sense of “prêtres”); (2) OT Levitical/Aaronic cultic officiants under covenant critique, with no sacramental-mediation claim in view	Lock “sacrificateurs” as the exclusive rendering for kohanim in this curriculum; never substitute “prêtres”
temple / Église	(1) the historical Jerusalem sanctuary (Malachi 3:1); (2) [inherited from Romans] the institutional Catholic Church vs. the Protestant building sense of “temple”; (3) the body-of-Christ sense of ekklēsia	Anchor every occurrence of “temple” in Malachi material to the historical Jerusalem sanctuary explicitly; do not let it drift toward either the Romans “Église” institutional sense or the Protestant building sense
gloire / honneur	(1) gloire — God’s own radiant divine glory (1:11, 1:14; [TM REUSE], sense-restricted per baseline); (2) honneur — the human-relational honor owed a father/master (1:6)	Never substitute one for the other; 1:6’s rhetorical logic (a son honors his father, so why do you not honor me?) depends on “honneur,” not “gloire”
dîme	(1) the biblical ma’aser, a covenant-faithfulness principle; (2) the pre-Revolutionary French compulsory Church tax, abolished 1789, carrying live anticlerical/historical-grievance connotations in the destination culture	Not a theological collision but a socio-historical connotation collision; requires a proactive teaching note addressing the historical association before presenting the doctrine, not a lexical substitution (no better French word exists)
bénédiction / grâce	(1) berakhah — tangible Old Covenant blessing conditioned on obedient tithing (3:10); (2) [TM REUSE] grâce — unconditional, unmerited New Covenant favor (Romans baseline, explicitly never a reward for merit)	Explicit teaching note at every 3:10 occurrence distinguishing Old Covenant conditional blessing from New Covenant grace; flag for human theologian review whenever taught alongside Romans grace material
se repentir / se convertir / revenir	(1) shuv — relational, spatial “turning back” (3:7, 4:6); (2) French Catholic sacramental “repentir” (confession); (3) missionary “conversion” register	Prefer “revenir à” as primary; use “se repentir” only as secondary gloss; avoid “se convertir” entirely in this curriculum

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E. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Consistent with the baseline’s own caution against untranslated technical tags (e.g., “sola fide” left unglossed) and its lycée-reading-level target, this curriculum resolves almost every candidate Hebrew transliteration toward an established French Bible rendering rather than a raw transliteration. The exceptions are proper names only.

Term	Transliteration considered	Decision	Rationale
YHWH	”Yahvé”	Rejected — translated as “le SEIGNEUR” (alt. “l’Éternel”)	“Yahvé” is accurate but reads as academic/historical-critical register, foreign to the liturgical/devotional register this curriculum targets; also breaks continuity with the Romans baseline’s “Seigneur” family
YHWH Tzevaot	”SEIGNEUR Sabaoth”	Rejected — translated as “le SEIGNEUR des armées"	"Sabaoth” is an obscure untranslated tag below the target reading level; the military-host imagery must be legible in ordinary French
massa (oracle genre marker)	“massa” (bare transliteration), or literal “fardeau”	Rejected both — rendered “oracle"	"Fardeau” sounds unnatural as a book-title genre marker; “oracle” is the standing TOB/Bible de Jérusalem convention and requires no gloss
mal’akhi (“my messenger”)	“mal’akhi”	Rejected — translated “mon messager”	A transliteration would obscure that this is also the book’s own title-meaning; direct translation preserves the wordplay for a French reader when explained in teaching notes
segullah (“treasured possession”)	“segoulah”	Rejected — paraphrased as “un peuple précieux”	No French Bible tradition transliterates this term; a bare transliteration would be opaque without extensive gloss, more costly than a periphrasis
cherem (“utter destruction”)	“hérem”	Rejected — rendered “anathème / destruction totale"	"Hérem” is too obscure for the target reading level; “anathème” is an already-attested loanword in French religious vocabulary (via Greek anathema) carrying real severity without requiring a fresh gloss
shalach (2:16, divorce statement)	n/a (verbal form, not a proper noun)	Paraphrase required — “répudier / le divorce”	No transliteration option exists for a finite verb form; textual ambiguity is handled by mandatory theologian review, not by lexical choice
berit (“covenant”)	“berith”	Rejected — [TM REUSE] “alliance”	Already fixed by the Romans baseline; no reason to introduce a transliteration for a term the destination audience already reads fluently as “alliance”
Elohim / El	”Elohim”	Rejected — [TM REUSE] “Dieu”	Already fixed by the Romans baseline
Proper names (Edom, Jacob, Juda, Jérusalem, Élie, Moïse, David)	—	Standard French Bible transliterated forms retained	These are the one category where transliteration (in its loose sense of an established proper-name form) is correct and expected; no paraphrase is appropriate for a proper name

General principle: transliteration is reserved exclusively for proper names already possessing a fixed French Bible convention. Every other Hebrew term considered for bare transliteration was rejected in favor of an established or newly justified French rendering, consistent with the baseline’s instruction to avoid untranslated technical tags unless immediately glossed.

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F. Ranked List of This Letter’s Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined weight of (a) doctrinal centrality, (b) collision/conflation risk, and (c) frequency or proximity to the core passage (3:1-4).

1. YHWH vs. ha’adon in Malachi 3:1 (le SEIGNEUR vs. le Seigneur) — the core passage’s central ambiguity; collapses two distinct figures if the typographic convention is not enforced across every output format. Critical.
2. The four-way “justice” polysemy (mishpat 2:17; tsedaqah-cultic 3:3; tsedaqah-messianic 4:2; plus the inherited Romans forensic sense) — the single most overloaded word in the combined Romans+Malachi French vocabulary set. Critical.
3. The divorce statement, Malachi 2:16 — genuine Hebrew textual/translational ambiguity intersecting live pastoral sensitivity around marriage and divorce. Critical.
4. “J’ai haï” (Esau), 1:3 — risk of a bare literal rendering being heard as arbitrary divine malice rather than the comparative-preference covenant idiom Paul himself preserves in Romans 9:13. Critical.
5. Two-figure conflation in 3:1 (“mon messager” vs. “le messager de l’alliance”) — risk that French readers merge the forerunner and the Lord/covenant-messenger into a single figure, flattening the verse’s deliberate structure. Critical.
6. “Dîme” and its Ancien Régime/anticlerical cultural loading — a socio-historical collision (not a lexical one) that could cause the entire Faithfulness-in-Tithing doctrine to land as a demand for a discredited feudal tax rather than a covenant principle. High.
7. “Sacrificateurs” vs. “prêtres” — the single highest-frequency Catholic sacramental-collision risk in the book (occurs from 1:6 through 2:9). High.
8. “Bénédiction” (3:10) read against the baseline’s “grâce” doctrine — risk of an Old-Covenant-conditional-blessing text being taught as if it were the New Covenant’s unconditional grace, opening a prosperity-gospel misreading. High.
9. “Se repentir” carrying Catholic sacramental-confession freight for shuv — risks narrowing a relational “turning back” summons into a ritual act. High.
10. Cherem/arur collapse — if both 1:14 and 4:6 are rendered “maudit,” the book’s escalating covenantal-severity structure from chapter 1 to chapter 4 disappears. High.
11. “Temple” collision with the Protestant building-sense and secondarily with the Romans-baseline “Église” institutional sense. Medium-High.
12. “Amour”/“aimé” flattening 1:2’s covenantal-electing love into sentimental affection, weakening the direct link to Romans 9:13’s use of the same verse. Medium-High.
13. “Honneur” vs. “gloire” kavod-sense bleed (1:6 vs. 1:11/1:14) — risk of losing Malachi’s father/son rhetorical argument if the human and divine senses are not kept lexically separate. Medium.
14. “Les nations” vs. “païens” in 1:11’s positive, universal-worship context — requires consistent enforcement of the baseline’s own stated preference against “païens” in hopeful/mission contexts; a single Phase 2 worker’s lapse here would contradict the book’s own theological point. Medium.
15. Refiner’s-fire/fuller’s-soap trade-image opacity for modern, urbanized French readers with no lived familiarity with metallurgy or textile fulling — a comprehension risk rather than a mistranslation risk, but one that could blunt the core passage’s central purifying-judgment image if left unglossed. Medium.

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G. Recommendations Carried Forward to Steps 9-11

1. Lock the small-capitals “SEIGNEUR” vs. regular-case “Seigneur” typographic convention as a formatting requirement in the Step 9 glossary lock, not merely a style preference — it must survive every downstream output format.
2. Extend the baseline’s per-occurrence disambiguation requirement (already modeled for “calling”/“election”) to every occurrence of “justice” in Malachi, given the now four-way sense collision across the combined curriculum.
3. Carry the dîme cultural-loading issue, the bénédiction/grâce distinction, and the sacrificateurs/prêtres lock into the doctrine risk registry (Step 11) as explicit French-specific risk notes, following the pattern the Romans baseline set for “élection,” “saints,” and “tithe”-adjacent cultural collisions.
4. Route all fifteen ranked ambiguities above to the review tiers implied by their risk label (Critical/High → human theologian; Medium → native speaker), consistent with the baseline’s escalation rules.
5. Ensure Phase 2 translator system prompts for Malachi explicitly forbid: rendering both arur and cherem as “maudit”; rendering kohanim as “prêtres”; rendering kavod’s human sense as “gloire”; and silently resolving the 2:16 divorce-statement ambiguity without a flag.