Linguistic Gap Analysis
2 Samuel — Linguistic Gap Analysis (Hmong Language Package)
Governing note: This document does not override any fixed Romans-baseline TM entry. Where a 2 Samuel term reuses baseline vocabulary (Vajtswv, tus Tswv, Vaj Ntsuj Plig, txiaj ntsim, kev xaiv, hwjchim, pehawm, kev cawm dim, etc.), that entry’s fixed rendering, mandatory qualifiers, and forbidden substitutions apply unchanged. This analysis identifies where 2 Samuel’s Hebrew narrative-and-covenant vocabulary (1) has no existing baseline analogue and must be newly coined, (2) crowds into an existing baseline semantic neighborhood and requires fencing to avoid doctrinal bleed, or (3) surfaces a fresh collision with Hmong traditional religion not previously documented in the Romans package.
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each of the five assigned doctrines: the Hmong terms currently available (baseline-reused + newly proposed), their specific weaknesses, and the recommended handling strategy for Phase 2 generation.
1.1 Doctrine 1 — The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
| Available Hmong Term | Source | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
kev cog lus (nrog kev cog tseg ua pov thawj) (covenant, berith) | NEW (registry id 10) | Hmong has robust vocabulary for interpersonal/clan pacts, but no native category for a unilateral, unconditional divine pact; hearers will default to a bilateral-obligation reading (both parties owe each other) | Teach explicitly that from ch.7 onward the obligation is one-directional: God binds Himself, David does not reciprocally bind God. Use identical wording from the human-political sense (ch.3, Abner’s covenant with David) through the climactic divine sense (23:5) so the shift in kind (bilateral→unilateral) is visible to the hearer as the same word doing new theological work. |
kev cog lus mus ib txhis (everlasting covenant, berith olam) | NEW (registry id 11) | Highest standalone collision risk in the book — see §4 ranked list | Mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence; never present in isolation from 11:29-style “irrevocable calling” framing already established in the Romans baseline for the Election doctrine. |
lub nceeg vaj (ntawm Yixalayees) (kingdom, mamlakah) | NEW (registry id 13) | Collides with the Hmong Huab Tais folk-messianic ethnic-nationalist kingdom expectation (see §4) | Never let this term appear without either (a) explicit co-text anchoring it as historical, past, Israel-specific or (b) an explicit forward-pointer to Christ’s spiritual reign; never allow it to stand as a free-floating promise of restored earthly rule. |
lub zwm txwv (throne, kisse) | NEW (registry id 15) | Inherits the mamlakah collision; concrete physical-seat imagery invites literal-restoration readings | Pair “throne of David” with an explicit Luke 1:32-33 forward-reference note in every teaching unit that quotes 7:13 or 7:16. |
mus ib txhis (forever, ad olam) | NEW (registry id 16) | Domestication risk: ANE royal rhetoric regularly used “forever” hyperbolically for “a long dynasty”; Hmong lineage-praise idiom has a similar rhetorical habit (elders blessing a family “to last many generations”) | Explicitly teach that this “forever” is literal, not honorific hyperbole, precisely because it outlasted the literal historical monarchy (which ended) and is fulfilled in Christ. |
tus xeeb ntxwv (seed/offspring, zera) | NEW (registry id 20) | Singular/collective ambiguity native to the Hebrew is not naturally marked in Hmong noun morphology either — good structural match, but the near/far double referent (Solomon/Messiah) is not self-evident from the word alone | Always teach with explicit near-fulfillment (Solomon) and far-fulfillment (Messiah) named side by side; never let the term resolve silently into only Solomon. |
tus qub txeeg qub teg (heir) | Baseline-reused | Strong positive resonance with Hmong lineage-inheritance custom (no weakness) | No special handling needed beyond standard baseline reuse. |
lub Nceeg Vaj ntawm Vajtswv (Kingdom of God) | Baseline-reused | None in itself; risk is confusion with mamlakah, not a weakness of this term | Always keep visually/lexically distinct from lub nceeg vaj (ntawm Yixalayees); never use interchangeably. |
Doctrine-level gap: No single Hmong term or fixed phrase currently exists that captures “dynastic promise transposed into unconditional, eternal, Christ-fulfilled covenant” as one semantic unit — this must remain a taught relationship between four terms (kev cog lus, lub nceeg vaj, lub zwm txwv, mus ib txhis), not collapsed into a single coinage. Recommend against inventing a compound umbrella term; the four-term cluster with consistent cross-referencing is the safer strategy.
1.2 Doctrine 2 — David’s Sin and Repentance
| Available Hmong Term | Source | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
txhaum / kev txhaum (sin) | Baseline-reused | Hmong custom frames wrongdoing chiefly as reparable social/ritual fault, not objective God-ward guilt | Reinforce baseline caution with extra force here since David’s sin is the paradigm case for the whole doctrine; sin must be taught as against God first (per 12:13’s own wording), not primarily against Uriah/Bathsheba/the nation. |
kev deev luag poj luag txiv (adultery, na’aph) | NEW (registry id 40) | Comprehension-level only; permitted-polygamy context could obscure why this specific act is wrong | Teach the violated-boundary (another man’s wife) plus the royal power-imbalance explicitly; do not let cultural familiarity with polygamy soften the verdict. |
kev tua neeg (npaj tseg) (murder, harag) | NEW (registry id 41) | None significant; needs distinction from legitimate battlefield death | Explicit note distinguishing premeditated proxy-killing from combat casualty. |
kev lees paub txhaum thiab tig hlo rov qab rau Vajtswv (repentance) | NEW (registry id 42) | Gap: no single Hebrew abstract noun and no existing Hmong Christian fixed term for “repentance” as a theological category — this is a periphrastic coinage, not an inherited idiom | See §2 below for full gap treatment; must be taught as heart-turning toward God, explicitly NOT the completion of a social-ritual apology sequence (the strong default Hmong cultural script for resolving wrongdoing). |
zam txim (forgive, nasa) | NEW (registry id 43) | Gap identified at Romans-baseline level: no dedicated “forgiveness” TM entry existed prior to this book | Proposed permanent new TM entry (see §2); must be taught as God’s sovereign gracious act, parallel in kind to txiaj ntsim but not identical to it, and never automatic upon completed apology-ritual. |
qhov theej txhoj kev txhaum (propitiation) | Baseline-reused | Must not be confused with zam txim (forgiveness is the application, propitiation is the ground) | Keep the two terms in an explicit ground/application relationship whenever both appear in the same lesson. |
Doctrine-level gap: Repentance has no ready-made Hmong Christian idiom equivalent to an English “repent/repentance” abstract noun-family; the periphrastic phrase must do double duty as both verb-phrase and noun-phrase, which is linguistically workable in Hmong (verb phrases regularly nominalize by simple juncture with kev) but requires the phrase to remain word-for-word identical across every occurrence, or hearers will not recognize repeated instances as the same theological event.
1.3 Doctrine 3 — Consequences of Sin within the Covenant Family
| Available Hmong Term | Source | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
Rab ntaj yuav tsis ncaim koj tsev neeg mus li (sword shall not depart) | NEW (registry id 46) | Deliberately reuses tsev (house, bayit) — good, since it keeps the dynastic wordplay visible, but risks being read as a curse independent of, rather than consequence within, the covenant | Must always be taught in the same breath as chesed (id 39, unwavering covenant love, v.15) — consequence and covenant-loyalty are simultaneous, not sequential or contradictory. |
kev quab yuam ua txhaum kev sib deev (sexual violation, ‘anah) | NEW (registry id 47) | Sensitive; risk of minimization via reparable-social-fault framing already flagged for txhaum generally | Dignified, victim-honoring register mandatory; must not be narrated as a family “dispute” or “shame” episode centered on family honor-restoration alone — Tamar’s suffering is the center, not David’s or Absalom’s political fallout. |
kev tuam tsov ntxeev, kev fav xeeb (conspiracy/rebellion) | NEW (registry id 53) | Political/comprehension-level only | Teach as consequence flowing from the house’s internal fracture, not as an isolated political-history narrative disconnected from Doctrine 3. |
lub tsev (house, bayit, dynastic sense) | NEW (registry id 9) | Same wordplay-collapse risk documented in the core glossary | Consistent dynastic qualifier required at every occurrence describing consequence-within-the-family, so hearers track that “house” here is the same covenant-dynasty promised eternal permanence in ch.7 — the tragedy is internal to the promised house, which is precisely the doctrinal point. |
tus kwv tij uas yuav tsum pauj taus ntshav (avenger of blood) | NEW (registry id 52) | Positive clan resonance could accidentally validate Absalom’s/Joab’s private vengeance-killings as legitimate exercises of this institution | Explicitly distinguish legitimate customary blood-vengeance from the narrative’s condemned private murders (Amnon, Absalom, Amasa) — the institution existing does not mean every killing in the narrative is sanctioned by it. |
Doctrine-level gap: No existing Hmong theological vocabulary distinguishes “covenant consequence” (discipline within a relationship God refuses to sever) from ordinary “curse” (relational severance, the Hmong default expectation for ritual/ancestral offense). This is not a lexical gap so much as a framing gap — recommend a fixed catechetical formula to be reused verbatim across all Doctrine 3 content: “Vajtswv rau txim rau tej kev txhaum, tiamsis Nws tsis muab nws txoj kev cog lus rho tawm” (“God punishes the sin, but He does not withdraw His covenant”) — proposed for TM-revision review as a doctrine-anchor sentence, not a single-term entry.
1.4 Doctrine 4 — God’s Steadfast Love despite Human Failure
| Available Hmong Term | Source | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
txoj kev hlub ruaj khov (raws li tej lus cog tseg) (chesed) | NEW (registry id 39) | Highest-risk single term in this doctrine — see §4 ranked list; nearest Hmong cultural analogue (clan mutual-aid loyalty, kwv tij yuav tsum pab kwv tij) is reciprocal and forfeitable, whereas chesed toward David’s line is unilateral and guaranteed even through unfaithfulness | Mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence; must always be taught in explicit contrast with Saul’s house (whose covenant was withdrawn, 1 Sam 15) to show David’s case is not “David simply behaved better,” but sovereign unilateral commitment. |
txiaj ntsim (grace) | Baseline-reused | Risk of doctrinal blending with chesed if not kept distinct | Keep grace = unmerited favor toward the guilty; chesed = loyal love maintained despite covenant-partner failure; teach as overlapping but not identical circles. |
txoj kev khuv leej (mercy) | Baseline-reused | Same blending risk as above | Mercy = compassion toward the miserable; distinct emphasis from both grace and chesed; all three must remain lexically separate across every lesson touching Doctrine 4. |
qhuab qhia thiab rau txim (discipline, yasar) | NEW (registry id 38) | Risk of assimilation to Hmong ancestral/spirit punishment-for-ritual-transgression, which signals broken relationship needing ritual repair | Explicitly teach that in 7:14-15 discipline and unbroken chesed are stated in the same breath — the discipline does NOT signal relational rupture, unlike the Hmong cultural default. |
ruaj khov, ntseeg tau (made sure/established, ne’eman) | NEW (registry id 19) | Comprehension-level; low risk alone but must be visibly linked to chesed to avoid sounding like a bare legal-certainty claim detached from relational love | Reinforce alongside chesed and mamlakah/kisse as one unified promise resting on God’s character. |
Doctrine-level gap: There is no existing Hmong term that natively combines “loyalty + love + faithfulness maintained unilaterally despite betrayal” — chesed is a genuine three-way semantic gap (English “steadfast love/lovingkindness” is itself a compromise gloss). The current periphrastic solution (txoj kev hlub ruaj khov raws li tej lus cog tseg, lit. “love that is firm/unshaking, according to what was pledged”) is linguistically sound but long; recommend it be shortened to a fixed short-form kev hlub ruaj khov for repeated in-lesson use AFTER a full first-occurrence gloss per module, matching the Romans-baseline reading-level convention (§6 of 12_ai_translation_requirements.md) for long compound phrases.
1.5 Doctrine 5 — The Messianic Hope Rooted in David’s Line
| Available Hmong Term | Source | Weakness | Recommended Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
tus uas raug Vajtswv tsa thiab pleev roj (Anointed/mashiach) | NEW (registry id 18) | Second-highest risk term in the book — direct root of NT “Christ,” collides with Huab Tais folk-messianic expectation; applied even to rejected Saul in ch.1, complicating the term’s reliability as a righteousness-guarantee | Mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence; explicit teaching that anointing marks office, not guaranteed personal righteousness — only David’s line (ch.7), not every anointed individual, receives the unconditional promise. |
tus xeeb ntxwv (seed/offspring, zera) | NEW (registry id 20) | Near/far double-fulfillment ambiguity (see Doctrine 1) | Always present Solomon and Messiah together as near/far fulfillments; never let this doctrine rest on zera alone without cross-reference to mashiach and nagid. |
tus uas raug Vajtswv tsa ua thawj coj (designated ruler, nagid) | NEW (registry id 17) | Medium risk; must be taught alongside baseline kev xaiv, never hmoov | Reinforce the divine-designation sense as distinct from dynastic entitlement or self-assertion. |
yug thiab saib xyuas (shepherd metaphor, ra’ah) | NEW (registry id 55) | Positive bridge (Hmong highland herding familiarity); risk is under-development, not collision | Flag for reinforcement when connected to NT Shepherd-King typology (John 10, etc.) in later curricula; log as forward-looking cross-reference. |
Leej Tub ntawm Vajtswv (Son of God) vs. nws yuav ua leej tub rau Vajtswv (covenantal sonship, ben) | Baseline-reused / NEW (registry id 8) | Must never be conflated — one is Christ’s unique eternal Sonship, the other is derivative covenantal sonship granted to David’s heir | Always keep the two phrasings visually and lexically distinct; never substitute the fixed baseline Christ-title into the OT ch.7 context, and never let the ch.7 covenantal-sonship phrase stand alone without a forward note toward its ultimate fulfillment in Christ. |
Doctrine-level gap: No Hmong term exists (nor should one be coined) that pre-resolves the typological relationship between Solomon and Christ — this is correctly a teaching task, not a lexical task. The risk is entirely in under-teaching the double fulfillment, not in any single word choice.
2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods
2.1 Genuinely Missing Vocabulary (no prior TM/registry entry, no ready Hmong idiom)
| Concept | Gap Type | Current Coinage | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Repentance (as abstract theological category) | Total lexical gap — Hebrew itself lacks a single noun here; Hmong Christian tradition has no fixed equivalent noun either | kev lees paub txhaum thiab tig hlo rov qab rau Vajtswv | Workable periphrasis; recommend permanent adoption as the fixed repentance entry for all future OT curricula, filling a gap in the Romans-baseline TM itself (Romans uses metanoia language only obliquely; this book surfaces the need explicitly). |
| Forgiveness (as a distinct action-verb from propitiation) | Total lexical gap at the Romans-baseline level — flagged explicitly in the prior glossary | zam txim | Short, stable, already circulating in general Hmong Christian usage for interpersonal forgiveness; safe to promote to a permanent TM entry provided the ground/application distinction from propitiation is taught every time. |
| Chesed (covenant-loyal steadfast love) | Total lexical gap — no Hmong word combines loyalty + unconditional love + faithfulness-despite-failure | txoj kev hlub ruaj khov (raws li tej lus cog tseg) | Necessary coinage; see §1.4 for shortening strategy. |
| Berith olam / unconditional unilateral covenant (as distinct from bilateral pact) | Partial gap — the word kev cog lus exists and is adequate lexically, but the unilateral concept-shape has no dedicated marker | Handled by teaching, not new vocabulary (see §1.1) | No new coinage recommended; flag as a framing task. |
| ”Covenant consequence” vs. “curse/relational severance” | Framing gap, not lexical | Proposed catechetical anchor sentence (§1.3) | Recommend formal adoption as a fixed teaching sentence, not a glossary term. |
2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing
These are clusters where multiple distinct source-language concepts are pulled toward the same Hmong word family, requiring explicit, consistently-applied fences (qualifiers, co-text rules) to prevent doctrinal bleed between them.
Neighborhood A — tsev (house/family/dwelling)
- Physical house (ordinary sense)
- Royal dynasty/lineage (7:11, 16 — “the LORD will make you a house”)
- Temple (“a house for my Name,” 7:13)
- Household-as-consequence-locus (12:10, “the sword shall not depart from your house”)
Fencing rule: Every occurrence outside the plain physical-dwelling sense must carry an explicit qualifier (cuab kwv tij / keeb kwm for dynasty; rau Vajtswv lub npe for temple) at first occurrence in each lesson, with the wordplay itself (David wants to build God a house; God will build David a house) made an explicit teaching point rather than left implicit, since Hmong tsev supports the wordplay well lexically but will not surface the irony without commentary.
Neighborhood B — fij (sacrificial/dedicatory offering domain)
- Christ’s unique atonement (
qhov theej txhoj kev txhaum— baseline, fenced off entirely) - Ethical living-sacrifice devotion (
khoom fij uas muaj txoj sia nyob— baseline) - OT altar/burnt-offering ritual (
thaj rooj fij / khoom fij hlawv tag, ch.24) - Dedication of war-spoils (
muab fij/cai rau Vajtswv, ch.8) - National bloodguilt atonement/kipper (
kev theej txim rau tej ntshav uas raug tua, ch.21)
Fencing rule: This is the single most crowded and highest-stakes neighborhood in the book because it borders directly on live Hmong traditional-religion sacrificial practice (fij dab, fij xwm kab). Every one of the five senses above must be introduced with an explicit “this is NOT the same as X” contrast to at least one other sense in the same cluster, and NONE of the OT-specific senses (altar/olah, kipper) may ever borrow the baseline’s “once-for-all, sufficient” language reserved exclusively for Christ’s atonement. Recommend a standing footnote template reused at every occurrence: “Qhov no tsis yog ib qho fij zoo ib yam li tej kev fij rau dab; nws yog…” (“This is not an offering like the offerings to spirits; it is…”).
Neighborhood C — hwjchim (power)
- God’s power generally (baseline: always
Vajtswv hwjchim) - LORD of Hosts military-cosmic sovereignty (
tus TSWV uas kav tag nrho tej tub rog) - (Absent but adjacent risk) royal/political power of David’s throne
Fencing rule: Continue baseline discipline — never bare hwjchim. New for this book: the LORD of Hosts title must not be misheard as “God is the strongest of many competing spirit-generals”; explicit monotheistic framing (no rival spirit-army exists) required at first occurrence.
Neighborhood D — Divine love/favor cluster: txiaj ntsim (grace) / txoj kev khuv leej (mercy) / txoj kev hlub ruaj khov (chesed) / kev hlub (ordinary love, ahavah)
- Four distinct source concepts converging on adjacent Hmong vocabulary
Fencing rule: Maintain a standing three-column contrast table (grace = unmerited favor toward the guilty; mercy = compassion toward the miserable; chesed = loyalty/love maintained despite covenant-partner failure) introduced at first occurrence in any lesson using two or more of these terms together (chiefly ch.7, 9, 22, 23), per the doctrine-vocabulary-matrix strategy in §1.4.
Neighborhood E — Anointed/designated/chosen-ruler cluster: mashiach / nagid / kev xaiv (election)
- Anointed one (ritual/office marker, applied even to rejected Saul)
- Designated ruler (nagid, divine appointment marker)
- Election (the underlying theological category of sovereign personal choice)
Fencing rule: Teach as three concentric layers, not synonyms: election is the theological ground; nagid names the divine-designation act; mashiach names the ritual-office marker that follows. Saul illustrates that mashiach (ritual office) does not guarantee that election-in-the-fullest-sense (unconditional favor) is permanently in force — only David’s covenant line receives that in ch.7.
Neighborhood F — berith / lus cog tseg (covenant/promise) vs. ordinary political treaty-making (ch.3, Abner)
- Same lexical item spans purely secular political alliance and God’s redemptive-historical covenant
Fencing rule: Deliberately NOT fenced apart lexically (per registry id 10’s own note) — the throughline is the pedagogical point. The fence here is temporal/contextual signposting (“this is the same word used earlier for…”) rather than lexical substitution.
3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Proper names (David, Nathan, Bathsheba, Uriah, Joab, Absalom, etc.) | Transliterate (provisional RPA forms per core glossary Part C) | Consistent with existing Hmong Bible tradition’s transliteration practice for proper names (cf. Povlauj, Yexus Khetos in the Romans baseline); paraphrase is inappropriate for personal names. All flagged [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED] pending formal TM-revision, per baseline §2 rule 4. |
mashiach (Anointed) | Paraphrase, not transliterate | Unlike Yexus Khetos (already a fixed proper-name transliteration baseline), the common noun/title mashiach must remain a descriptive Hmong phrase (tus uas raug Vajtswv tsa thiab pleev roj) so that its root meaning (“anointed with oil”) stays visible and teachable, and so it can be later connected transparently to “Khetos” as its Greek translation-equivalent, not left as an opaque parallel loanword competing with the fixed NT title. |
berith (covenant) | Paraphrase | A transliterated loanword would be doctrinally inert (as the baseline itself notes for nomos/Law); Hmong already has adequate native vocabulary (kev cog lus) that carries real semantic content once properly taught, so transliteration would introduce unnecessary opacity without any compensating collision-avoidance benefit. |
chesed (steadfast love) | Paraphrase (periphrastic coinage) | No existing Hmong word covers the concept; a transliterated loanword would be untaught-able (unlike Abba, which retains an existing NT precedent as a retained Aramaic address-term with its own footnote convention) — chesed has no comparable precedent and must be built from native descriptive material. |
Ruach YHWH / Holy Spirit at 23:2 | Continue baseline transliteration-avoidance, use fixed compound Vaj Ntsuj Plig | Already governed by the Romans baseline; no new decision required — reaffirmed here for completeness. |
Ark of God (aron ha’elohim) | Paraphrase, explicitly NOT transliterate | A transliterated loanword would evade rather than resolve the collision with Hmong spirit-altar objects (thaj); the compound Lub Phij Xab Cog Lus (ntawm Vajtswv) retains the covenant-sign meaning transparently, consistent with the baseline’s rejection of opaque loanwords for hilastērion and baptisma on the same grounds. |
nagid / bayit / zera / shem (name) | Paraphrase | All are common nouns carrying ordinary, teachable Hmong equivalents (tus uas raug Vajtswv tsa ua thawj coj; lub tsev; tus xeeb ntxwv; lub npe); transliteration would be both unnecessary and would sever these terms from their function within the wordplay/typology arguments that depend on native semantic content being visible to the hearer. |
Abba-style retained loanword pattern | Not applicable to any 2 Samuel term | No term in this book warrants the “retained loanword + gloss + footnote” treatment used for Abba in Romans; that treatment is reserved for cases with direct NT textual precedent for retention. No new exceptions proposed. |
General rule for this book: Default to paraphrase for all common-noun theological vocabulary; reserve transliteration exclusively for proper names. This continues, without modification, the transliteration policy implicit in the Romans baseline (which transliterates Yexus Khetos, Povlauj, Abba — all either proper names or a single NT-precedented retained address-term — while paraphrasing every common-noun theological term).
4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities
Ranked by combined severity of (a) doctrinal load-bearing weight, (b) specificity and strength of the competing Hmong traditional-religion concept, and (c) likelihood of the ambiguity surfacing unnoticed in ordinary curriculum generation.
-
kipper— national bloodguilt atonement (21:1-14) —kev theej txim rau tej ntshav uas raug tua. Highest risk in the entire book: the narrative logic (death required to lift a covenant-curse famine) is phenomenologically almost identical to live Hmong ancestral/nature-spirit appeasement sacrifice. Left unfenced, this passage could be read as Scripture endorsing the very category of ritual killing-for-calamity-removal that the gospel elsewhere relativizes. Mandatory theologian review; never omit contrast-teaching against both shamanic appeasement AND Christ’s unique atonement. -
mamlakah/kisse/berith olamcluster — eternal kingdom/throne/covenant (ch.7, 23) —lub nceeg vaj (ntawm Yixalayees)/lub zwm txwv/kev cog lus mus ib txhis. This is the core passage’s own central promise, and it is the single most quotable proof-text cluster in the book, meaning generation volume will be high. Direct collision with the Hmong Huab Tais ethnic-nationalist messianic-king tradition, which has real historical weight (invoked in actual Hmong resistance/millenarian movements) and is therefore not a hypothetical risk but a live cultural expectation. Every occurrence requires explicit Christ-ward, spiritual-reign framing. -
mashiach— Anointed One (ch.1, 2, 23) —tus uas raug Vajtswv tsa thiab pleev roj. Direct root of “Christ,” applied first to a rejected king (Saul), creating a real risk that hearers either (a) assume anointing = guaranteed favor (contradicted by Saul) or (b) resolve the whole messianic-title trajectory into a this-worldly royal-conqueror expectation matching Huab Tais folklore. Requires careful sequencing across the book’s narrative arc. -
bayit— house (dynasty/temple wordplay, ch.7, reused ch.12) —lub tsev. Not a traditional-religion collision but a structural comprehension risk: the entire rhetorical power of 7:1-17 (David wants to build God a house; God instead builds David a house) depends on the wordplay surviving translation. Hmongtsevsupports it lexically, but nothing in the bare word signals the irony — this is a high-probability point of silent flattening in ordinary generation unless the qualifier discipline is enforced every time. -
fij-domain crowding — altar/olah, dedication/qadash, living sacrifice, propitiation, kipper (ch.8, 21, 24) — see Neighborhood B above. Ranked here as a cluster because any single occurrence handled in isolation (without cross-referencing the other four senses) risks doctrinal bleed even when the individual gloss is technically correct. -
chesed— steadfast love (ch.7, 9, 22, 23) —txoj kev hlub ruaj khov (raws li tej lus cog tseg). Doctrine 4’s central term; risk is subtler than the above (no direct traditional-religion collision) but structurally significant: the nearest cultural analogue (reciprocal clan loyalty) is conditional, and an unfenced rendering will quietly import conditionality into a doctrine whose entire force is God’s love being unconditional. -
Ark of God (ch.6, 7) —
Lub Phij Xab Cog Lus (ntawm Vajtswv). Concrete cultic object with a close phenomenological analogue in household/ancestral spirit-shrine objects; Uzzah’s death (6:6-7) is a particular flashpoint that could be misread as confirming the Ark’s autonomous supernatural danger-power (matching folk-shrine taboo logic) rather than illustrating the unique holiness of God Himself. -
nasa(forgive) vs.chatati la-YHWH(repentance) sequencing (ch.12) — risk that the pastoral narrative (David confesses, Nathan immediately declares forgiveness) gets absorbed into the Hmong cultural script of “correct apology ritual performed → matter resolved,” obscuring that forgiveness here is a sovereign divine act, not an automatic social-ritual outcome. -
raqad(dance in worship, ch.6) —seev cev pehawm tus TSWV. Real but lower-probability risk of assimilation to shamanic ecstatic trance-dance (ua neeb); mitigated by the mandatorypehawm-object-anchoring rule already inherited from the Romans baseline, but still requires explicit non-trance framing given the visually similar surface behavior (uninhibited public dancing). -
Rock/Fortress/Shield metaphor cluster (ch.22) —
kuv lub pob zebetc. Ranked lowest among the Critical/High-tier risks because the metaphorical (not literal) nature of the language is relatively transparent in context, but still requires an explicit disclaimer against literal rock/mountain-spirit veneration (dab roob,dab zoov) given how extensive and poetically vivid the chapter’s imagery is.
5. Summary Recommendations for Phase 2 Handoff
- Adopt
zam txim(forgiveness) and the repentance periphrasis as new permanent TM entries — both fill genuine gaps in the Romans-baseline TM itself and will be needed again in future OT curricula. - Adopt
txoj kev hlub ruaj khov (raws li tej lus cog tseg)(chesed) as a permanent Critical-tier TM entry with mandatory theologian review at every occurrence, distinct from grace and mercy. - Escalate
kipper(ch.21) and themamlakah/kisse/berith olamcluster (ch.7, 23) as the two highest-priority items for mandatory pre-publication theologian review in any Phase 2 content touching this book. - Require the standing
fij-domain contrast footnote (§2.2 Neighborhood B) at every occurrence of any of the five sacrificial/dedicatory senses. - Require the
tsev/bayit dynastic-or-temple qualifier (§2.2 Neighborhood A) at every occurrence outside the plain physical-dwelling sense, with the ch.7 wordplay made an explicit teaching point rather than left implicit. - No new transliterated loanwords are recommended for any 2 Samuel common-noun theological term; transliteration is reserved exclusively for proper names, consistent with the Romans-baseline policy.
- All Part B/registry “NEW” entries in the prior glossary and term registry remain provisional pending formal TM-revision review, per
12_ai_translation_requirements.md§2 rule 4 and §9; this document does not itself grant permanent status to any coinage — it only ranks and reasons about the pending items.