Exodus — Linguistic Gap Analysis (Hmong Language Package)

0. Purpose and Method

This document performs the required Phase 1 gap analysis for the Exodus curriculum: it (1) maps each of the eight assigned doctrines against the Hmong vocabulary actually available, naming weaknesses; (2) separates missing vocabulary (concepts with no ready Hmong lexical home at all) from crowded semantic neighborhoods (concepts with a ready Hmong word that is already doing other, competing theological or religious work and therefore needs deliberate fencing); (3) records the transliteration-vs-paraphrase decision and rationale for every proper name/technical term newly introduced by this book; and (4) produces a ranked list of the letter’s — i.e. this book’s — highest-risk ambiguities, with the core passage (Exodus 12:1-14) treated as the theological anchor rather than the scope boundary, per the full-book-coverage mandate. Every term cited below either reuses a Romans-baseline TM entry exactly, unchanged (marked “Inherited”) or extends the prior Exodus 08_core_glossary.md / bible_term_registry.json proposals (marked “New — pending TM-revision review”).

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

#	Doctrine	Available Hmong Term(s)	Weaknesses in Available Vocabulary	Recommended Strategy
1	The Exodus as Redemption	kev txhiv (redemption, Inherited #38); Vajtswv hwjchim (power, Inherited #62, mandatory qualifier); kev cawm dim / cawm (salvation, Inherited #63); qhev (slave/bondage, Inherited #10); tus caj npab muaj zog / txhais tes muaj hwjchim (outstretched arm, New)	kev txhiv is a strong debt-redemption bridge but risks staying at the economic-legal level unless explicitly anchored to God as the price-payer/deliverer, not merely a creditor transaction. kev cawm dim shares the shamanic-soul-rescue (ua neeb) collision already logged for Romans; here the collision is sharper because Exodus supplies the literal historical referent (an actual army, an actual sea) that Hmong hearers could still assimilate into a “spirit rescued us from danger” pattern if the agent (YHWH, by name) is not stated in the same clause.	Never let kev txhiv or kev cawm dim stand alone in redemption-narrative teaching; require the triad — agent (tus Tswv / YHWH by name), means (blood/outstretched arm), and result (covenant service, not mere relief) — in the same teaching unit, reusing the Romans “named-savior, not generic ritual rescue” discipline.
2	Passover and Substitutionary Atonement	Kevcai Hla Dhau (Passover, New, Critical); cov ntshav (blood, New, High); menyuam yaj (lamb, New, Medium); tsis muaj chaw phem (unblemished, New, Medium); ncej qhov rooj (doorposts, New, Medium); tus muab kev puas tsuaj los (destroyer, New, High); qhov theej txhoj kev txhaum (propitiation, Inherited #37/#33)	This is the single densest collision zone in the book: Kevcai Hla Dhau shares the kevcai root already flagged Critical for the Law; blood applied to a doorframe is a near-exact formal match to Hmong household apotropaic marking customs; and the unnamed “destroyer” risks being heard as an autonomous dab phem. No existing Hmong vocabulary distinguishes “a completed, historically singular, substitutionary death” from “an ongoing protective ritual technique” — the distinction must be supplied entirely by teaching notes, not by lexical choice.	Treat 12:1-14 as requiring a mandatory compound teaching unit, never individual terms in isolation: (a) name the lamb’s death as the cause and the blood as the sign of an already-accomplished substitution; (b) explicitly subordinate the “destroyer” to YHWH’s own decree, never acting independently; (c) explicitly contrast the once-for-all historical event with any repeatable household protection rite. See Ranked List §4, items 1-3.
3	The Character and Name of God (I AM)	Kuv Yog Tus Kuv Yog (I AM WHO I AM, New, Critical); tus Tswv (LORD, Inherited #2); txiaj ntsim (grace, Inherited #14/#81); txoj kev khuv leej (mercy, Inherited); kev hlub (steadfast love, Inherited); qhov tseeb (truth/faithfulness, Inherited)	Hmong has no native category for a self-existent, self-defining divine name distinct from an invocable power-name; the risk is not mistranslation but misuse — hearers correctly memorizing the phrase but treating it as a stronger version of a ritual spirit-name that grants power when correctly spoken (paralleling the forbidden hu/ritual-summoning pattern already logged Critical in the Romans baseline for Rom 10:9-13). The character-formula convergence at 34:6-7 (grace + mercy + love + truth in one verse) also risks being heard as a checklist of appeasable moods rather than a single, stable, self-consistent character.	Kuv Yog Tus Kuv Yog must never appear without its mandatory first-use footnote and non-invocational teaching note (see 08_core_glossary.md §C). At 34:6-7, teach the four character-terms as one unified self-disclosure, not four independently negotiable divine favors, explicitly contrasting this with spirit-appeasement logic where different offerings are made to secure different moods from a spirit.
4	The Mosaic Covenant and Law	Txoj Kevcai (ntawm Vajtswv / Mauxes) (Inherited #27/#36, Critical); kev cog lus (covenant, New, Critical); Kaum Txoj Kevcai (ntawm Vajtswv) (Ten Commandments, New, Critical); kevcai thiab lus qhia (statutes and laws, New)	The Romans baseline already fences Txoj Kevcai against collapse into kev cai dab qhuas. Exodus adds a second, distinct gap: no Romans-baseline term exists for berit (covenant) as a mutual, structured, blood-ratified relational bond — lus cog tseg (promise) is unilateral and lighter-weight, and using it for covenant would flatten Sinai’s binding, stipulated character into a mere pledge.	Maintain kev cog lus as a distinct, non-interchangeable entry from lus cog tseg; never substitute one for the other. Every occurrence of Txoj Kevcai and Kaum Txoj Kevcai retains its mandatory qualifier with zero exceptions, including in section headers and quiz stems, per the qualifier-enforcement pattern already structural in the Romans baseline.
5	The Tabernacle and God’s Presence	Lub Tsev Ntaub (Sib Ntsib) (tabernacle, New, Medium); Lub Thawv Cog Lus (ark, New, Medium-High); dawb huv (holy, Inherited #46, High); Vajtswv lub ntsej muag / qhov chaw nrog nraim (presence/face, New, Medium-High); lub yeeb koob (glory, Inherited #53)	The Hmong home altar-shelf for household/ancestral spirits (thaj xwm kab) is a structural functional analogue to the tabernacle/ark — a designated sacred object/space where a spiritual reality is thought to reside and must be tended correctly. Without deliberate fencing, “God dwells among his people” risks being heard through the household-shrine frame: a located, tend-able, potentially offendable presence, rather than the covenant God’s personal, gracious self-disclosure.	Every occurrence of dawb huv applied to ground, objects, or the tent (3:5, 25-26, 40) must carry the mandatory teaching note “God’s presence sanctifies; ritual technique does not” (already logged in 08_core_glossary.md §C). The ark and tabernacle must be explicitly, repeatedly distinguished from thaj xwm kab by function: God comes near on his own gracious initiative and by his own instruction, not because the object is correctly maintained.
6	Deliverance from Bondage to Sin	txhaum / kev txhaum (sin, Inherited #36); kev npau taws ntawm Vajtswv (wrath, Inherited #31); lub siab tawv (hardening, Inherited #58); kev txom nyem loj / mob kis (plague, New, Medium-High); qhev / kev ua qhev (bondage, Inherited #10)	Physical Egyptian slavery (a clean, non-metaphorical referent) and Israel’s later golden-calf apostasy (a moral/spiritual bondage) both use bondage-adjacent vocabulary but must not be flattened together; the plague narrative additionally risks being read through the Hmong explanatory grid of misfortune as evidence of an unappeased/offended spirit, rather than forensic, targeted judgment against a specific idolatrous system.	Keep the literal bondage of ch.1-14 and the moral/spiritual bondage-to-sin theme (culminating in ch.32) taught as two connected but distinguishable applications of the same root vocabulary — literal history first, spiritual application second, never collapsed. Every plague reference must retain explicit judgment-against-a-named-idolatrous-system framing (12:12, “against the gods of Egypt”), not generic disaster-as-omen framing.
7	Moses as Mediator and Deliverer	Mauxes (name, Inherited); tus Tub Txib (apostle/sent-one, Inherited #9, applied by extension); Mauxes thov Vajtswv rau cov pejxeem (intercession, New); tus pas nrig (staff, New, Medium)	No Romans-baseline term captures “mediator” as a distinct office/function (the closest, tus Tub Txib, carries a commissioning sense but not an intercessory-standing-between sense). Moses’s staff also risks assimilation to shamanic ritual implements (txiv neeb paraphernalia) if presented as possessing its own power rather than being wholly instrumental to YHWH’s spoken command.	Introduce a dedicated descriptive phrase for “mediator” (e.g., tus sawv nruab nrab ntawm Vajtswv thiab nws haiv neeg, “one who stands between God and his people”) as a New, pending-review term rather than stretching tus Tub Txib beyond its established sense; log for TM-revision review. Every staff-narrative occurrence must explicitly tie the action to YHWH’s prior spoken instruction (4:2-5, 7:19, 14:16), never to the staff’s inherent power.
8	Holiness and the Fear of the Lord	dawb huv (holy, Inherited #46, High); hwm thiab ntshai Vajtswv (fear of God, New, High); ceeb ceeb thiab hwm Vajtswv (trembling, New, High)	ntshai is the identical verb used for fear of malevolent spirits (ntshai dab); without disambiguation, Sinai’s trembling (19:16, 20:18) reads as the same category of fear a Hmong hearer feels toward an unpredictable, potentially harmful spirit-power that must be placated through correct ritual behavior, rather than reverent awe of a God whose character (already disclosed as gracious and faithful, ch.34) grounds trust even in his fearsome holiness.	Every occurrence of hwm thiab ntshai Vajtswv / ceeb ceeb must be taught paired with the prior redemption-and-character content (chs. 3, 6, 34) so that fear is never presented in isolation from God’s proven covenant faithfulness — reverent awe because he has redeemed and revealed himself, not dread of an unknown, capricious power.

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.1 Missing Vocabulary (no ready Hmong lexical home)

These concepts have no existing Hmong word or fixed phrase at all, in either the Romans-baseline TM or ordinary usage, and require either a newly coined periphrasis (already proposed in the prior glossary) or an explicit teaching supplement rather than a single-word fix:

Concept	Gap Description	Current Proposal	Status
Self-existent divine being (Ehyeh asher Ehyeh)	No Hmong category for a name that is a statement of self-grounded, uncaused existence	Kuv Yog Tus Kuv Yog	New, Critical — mandatory footnote
Covenant as mutual, structured, blood-ratified bond (berit)	Hmong lus cog tseg covers unilateral pledge only; no term for bilateral covenant-with-stipulations	kev cog lus	New, Critical
Mediator (formal office of standing-between)	No dedicated Hmong ecclesial/legal term; nearest neighbor (tus Tub Txib) is commissioning, not interstitial-standing	tus sawv nruab nrab ntawm Vajtswv thiab nws haiv neeg (proposed, not yet in glossary)	Gap — requires new TM-revision submission
Substitutionary death signified by blood-as-completed-sign (as opposed to blood-as-ongoing-protective-substance)	No Hmong ritual category separates “sign of a finished transaction” from “active protective medium”	cov ntshav + mandatory once-for-all teaching note	New, High — teaching-note dependent
Priestly office instituted by revealed instruction rather than by spiritual gifting/charisma	No non-shamanic Hmong mediatorial-office vocabulary exists at all	tus Pov Thawj / tus Tuam Pov Thawj	New, Critical — mandatory contrast note
Corporate national vocation (“kingdom of priests, holy nation”)	No existing collective-identity term combines royal, priestly, and holiness senses simultaneously	lub Nceeg Vaj ntawm cov Pov Thawj / haiv neeg dawb huv	New, High

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (ready Hmong words already doing competing religious work)

These are the inverse problem: a perfectly natural, available Hmong word exists, but it is already semantically occupied by Hmong traditional religion, so every occurrence must be actively fenced rather than left to context alone.

Hmong Lexical Item	Competing Occupant Meaning	Biblical Uses at Risk	Fencing Strategy
kevcai (root of Txoj Kevcai, Kevcai Hla Dhau, kev cai raus dej)	kev cai dab qhuas = “religion,” lit. spirit-worship customs; also ordinary ancestral/funeral rites	Law (all), Passover (ch.12), Baptism (Romans-inherited)	Mandatory qualifier at every occurrence, no exceptions — already structural per Romans baseline §2.2; extended here to Kevcai Hla Dhau with a non-apotropaic teaching note.
dab / dab mlom / dab phem	The entire spirit-world lexical family: ancestral spirits, nature spirits, malevolent spirits, spirit-images	Idols (ch.20, 32), “gods of Egypt” (12:12), the Destroyer (12:23)	dab mlom retained deliberately (correct referent for idols); dab phem never used for the Destroyer — Destroyer must be rendered with the neutral agentive phrase tus muab kev puas tsuaj los, always explicitly subordinated to YHWH’s decree in the same sentence.
dawb huv	Ritual purity from spirit-contamination in folk healing/taboo practice	Sanctification (Rom-inherited), holy ground (3:5), tabernacle (25-26), Most Holy Place (26), national holiness (19:6), glory-filling (40)	Every occurrence paired with “God’s presence sanctifies, not ritual technique” note; never presented as a state achieved by correct ritual performance.
hwjchim	A shaman’s (txiv neeb) ritual power to negotiate with/command spirits	Power/outstretched arm (ch.6, 9, 14, 15), governing authority (Rom-inherited)	Mandatory Vajtswv hwjchim qualifier at every occurrence, structural, no exceptions — inherited discipline extended without modification.
ntshai (fear)	Fear of malevolent, capricious spirits (ntshai dab) that must be placated	Fear of God (1:17, 19:16, 20:18)	Always paired with hwm (honor/reverence) as a fixed collocation hwm thiab ntshai Vajtswv, never ntshai alone; taught as trust-filled awe grounded in prior redemption, not dread.
fij (sacrificial-offering root)	Offerings to appease ancestors/household/nature spirits (fij dab, fij xwm kab)	Altar (ch.27, 30, 38), incense (ch.30), propitiation (Rom-inherited), living sacrifice (Rom-inherited)	Every occurrence explicitly marked as (a) YHWH’s own appointed altar/system, distinct in object, not merely in form, from fij dab; incense must always name its object (rau tus Tswv) per the pehawm Vajtswv discipline.
hu (ritually calling back a soul / summoning a spirit)	Core verb of the hu plig soul-calling rite and spirit-invocation generally	Calling on YHWH’s name; any teaching that risks treating Kuv Yog Tus Kuv Yog as an invocation formula	hu must never be used to describe prayer/invocation of YHWH’s name in this curriculum; use thov (petition/pray) or hu npe only in its ordinary naming sense, never its ritual-summoning sense, and flag any drafting instance where the two could blur.
ntsuj plig (bare, no Vaj prefix)	One of a person’s several souls in animistic belief, ritually retrievable	Human spirit references (already Inherited, High risk)	Unchanged from Romans baseline: never prefixed with Vaj for this referent; the divine Spirit (31:3) must always carry Vaj Ntsuj Plig.
hmoov (fate/fortune)	Impersonal fortune assigned by ancestors/spirits/cosmic forces	Election/segullah (19:5), hardening-as-fatalism misreadings (ch.4-14)	PERMANENTLY FORBIDDEN, unchanged from Romans baseline; segullah must always retain the volitional clause Vajtswv xaiv raws li nws lub siab nyiam.
txiv neeb (shaman) and any of its ritual-implement/role vocabulary	The functional Hmong analogue to a spirit-mediator	Priest/High Priest (ch.28-29), Moses’s staff (ch.4, 7, 14, 17), ephod/Urim and Thummim (ch.28)	Permanently forbidden as a translation strategy (inherited prohibition); every priestly/mediatorial term requires an explicit, named contrast with txiv neeb function in its accompanying teaching note.

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3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Exodus introduces substantially more proper names, technical ritual objects, and Hebrew-specific institutions than Romans did. Each decision below records why a loanword/transliteration was chosen over a native descriptive paraphrase, or vice versa, so future curricula do not silently drift between the two strategies.

Term	Decision	Rendering	Rationale
Moses	Transliteration	Mauxes	Already fixed in the Romans-baseline qualifier (ntawm Vajtswv / Mauxes); consistency across canon mandatory.
Egypt	Transliteration	teb chaws Iziv	Stable proper-name transliteration already in existing Hmong Bible tradition; no paraphrase needed, no competing referent.
Passover (the rite)	Paraphrase, not transliteration	Kevcai Hla Dhau (“the rite of passing over”)	A bare transliteration of “Pesach” would be theologically opaque and would forfeit the descriptive “passing over/sparing” sense Exodus itself explains (12:13); the native compound was chosen deliberately so the meaning is teachable, accepting the kevcai-root collision as a manageable, fence-able risk rather than an unmanageable opaque-loanword risk.
I AM WHO I AM	Paraphrase, not transliteration	Kuv Yog Tus Kuv Yog	A Hebrew transliteration (Ehyeh asher Ehyeh) would be doctrinally inert to a Hmong hearer with no explanatory value; the periphrastic paraphrase preserves the self-referential grammatical structure of the Hebrew (repetition of the verb “to be”) while remaining native Hmong syntax. Mandatory footnote compensates for the loss of etymological transparency to “YHWH.”
Manna	Transliteration	Mana	No native Hmong food-category equivalent exists; a paraphrase (“bread from heaven, descriptive”) was considered but rejected because Manna functions as a proper name across the whole canon (including John 6); transliteration preserves cross-textual recognizability.
Sabbath	Transliteration (established loanword pattern)	Hnub Xanpeb	Follows existing Hmong Christian usage precedent; a full paraphrase (“day of rest holy to the LORD”) was rejected as unwieldy for a term used dozens of times.
Cherubim	Transliteration	cov Khelunpees	No native category for this class of heavenly being exists; paraphrase risks either flattening them to generic “angels” (losing the specific throne-guardian imagery) or inviting confusion with Hmong guardian-spirit concepts if descriptively translated (e.g., “spirit guardians”). Transliteration plus explicit teaching note (“God’s own created heavenly attendants, not independent spirit-beings”) was judged safer than any paraphrase alternative.
Urim and Thummim	Transliteration	Uli thiab Thumi	The underlying Hebrew meaning (“lights and perfections”) is contested among scholars; a paraphrase would overclaim precision. Transliteration plus a regulated-revelation teaching note (distinguishing from divination) was preferred.
Ark of the Covenant	Paraphrase	Lub Thawv Cog Lus (“the box/chest of the covenant”)	Concrete, descriptive, and reuses the already-established kev cog lus (covenant) term; a transliteration of “aron” would be opaque and would forfeit the direct doctrinal link to the covenant concept.
Tabernacle	Paraphrase	Lub Tsev Ntaub (Sib Ntsib) (“the meeting tent/cloth-house”)	Descriptive rendering was preferred over transliteration because the structure’s function (a portable meeting-place) is doctrinally load-bearing and must be immediately graspable; the parenthetical “Sib Ntsib” (meeting) variant is retained to bridge to the “Tent of Meeting” (ohel mo'ed) passages in ch.33.
Ephod / breastplate	Paraphrase	tsoos tsho pov thawj / lub npuas siab	Descriptive garment-terms were chosen over transliteration since these are functional priestly vestments without any Hmong ritual-implement near-equivalent that a loanword could anchor to; paraphrase makes the described function (priestly identification, revelation-bearing) accessible.
Priest / High Priest	Paraphrase (deliberately NOT the available native near-equivalent)	tus Pov Thawj / tus Tuam Pov Thawj	The ready native near-equivalent, txiv neeb (shaman), was rejected outright — this is a forbidden substitution, not merely a non-preferred one — because it would directly conflate God-appointed sacrificial mediation with shamanic spirit-negotiation. Pov Thawj is itself a loan-compound already used in broader Hmong religious vocabulary for “priest” in a general sense (including Buddhist/Catholic contexts) and carries less specific competing baggage than txiv neeb, making it the safer paraphrase base.
Egyptian gods	Reuse of existing term, not new coinage	tej dab mlom ntawm cov Iziv	Deliberately reuses the already-fenced dab mlom (idol) rather than coining a new “false god” term, so the teaching note already required for idols extends automatically to this occurrence.

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4. Ranked List of This Book’s Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision specificity × likelihood of silent misreading if unaddressed), anchored to the core passage (Exodus 12:1-14) at the top of the list per the theological-anchor mandate.

1. Passover blood on the doorposts read as apotropaic marking rather than sign of a completed substitution (12:7, 13, 22-23). This is the single highest-risk ambiguity in the entire curriculum: the formal parallel to Hmong household protective blood/marking customs is exact, the doctrinal stakes (substitutionary atonement itself) are maximal, and the natural inference (“the blood on the door protects the house”) is almost correct but omits the substitute’s death as the ground of safety. Mandatory compound teaching note required at every occurrence; no lexical fix is sufficient alone.

2. The Destroyer (12:23) heard as an autonomous evil spirit (dab phem) rather than an instrument fully subordinate to YHWH’s own decree. Left unaddressed, this could invert the passage’s monotheistic claim by introducing a second independent supernatural agent into the Passover narrative, exactly the kind of spirit-populated cosmology Exodus 12:12 explicitly names YHWH’s judgment as superseding.

3. Kevcai Hla Dhau (Passover) assimilated into the kevcai-root category of repeatable, technique-based religious custom-keeping, identical in kind to the already-Critical collision documented for Txoj Kevcai. Because Passover is both a historical event and a repeated annual commemoration, this collision is harder to fence than the Law’s, since the commemorative repetition genuinely does recur — the distinction (repeated remembrance of a once-for-all act vs. a repeatable efficacious ritual) is subtle and must be explicitly taught every time, not assumed self-evident from the surrounding narrative.

4. Kuv Yog Tus Kuv Yog heard as a more powerful invocable spirit-name rather than a statement of self-existent being. The risk is compounded because the correct Hmong instinct upon receiving a sacred name is often precisely to treat it as usable/invocable (paralleling hu plig logic); the doctrine (Character and Name of God) is directly inverted if this instinct is not explicitly named and corrected at first occurrence.

5. tus Pov Thawj / tus Tuam Pov Thawj (priest/high priest) collapsed functionally into txiv neeb (shaman) despite the different lexical choice, simply because both figures perform the same social role (ritual specialist standing between the human and divine/spirit realms) in the hearer’s lived experience. Lexical avoidance of txiv neeb reduces but does not eliminate this risk; only sustained, repeated catechetical contrast (God-appointed by instruction, never negotiator with spirits) closes the gap.

6. dawb huv (holy) applied to ground/objects/the tabernacle heard as ritual purity achieved by technique, at the highest density of any term in the book (occurring at 3:5, 13:2, 15:11, 19:6, chs. 25-26, 33, 40). The sheer frequency multiplies the risk that at least one occurrence in any given lesson will lack its mandatory teaching note.

7. Incense (roj tsw qab hlawv fij) read as functionally identical to household ancestor/spirit incense-burning, given that this is a near-daily concrete practice in Hmong homes; the form of the act (burning fragrant substance before a sacred structure) is genuinely identical, so only the stated object differentiates it, making the mandatory-object discipline (parallel to pehawm Vajtswv) unusually load-bearing here.

8. hwm thiab ntshai Vajtswv (fear of the LORD) collapsing into ntshai dab (fear of malevolent spirits), especially at the Sinai theophany (19:16, 20:18) where the physical trembling described is genuinely similar in outward form to spirit-fear responses documented in Hmong religious experience.

9. Moses’s staff (tus pas nrig) treated as possessing inherent power, assimilating it to shamanic ritual implements (txiv neeb paraphernalia) if any narrative retelling omits the explicit prior divine command that gives the staff its instrumental role.

10. kev cog lus (covenant) and lus cog tseg (promise) used interchangeably, flattening Sinai’s mutual, stipulated, blood-ratified covenant structure into a lighter, unilateral pledge — a purely internal-to-the-curriculum risk (no traditional-religion collision) but doctrinally significant for the Mosaic Covenant doctrine’s integrity, and easy to miss precisely because both terms are otherwise unremarkable, “safe” Hmong vocabulary.

11. Plagues (kev txom nyem loj / mob kis) read as generic capricious misfortune rather than forensic, targeted judgment against Egypt’s specific idolatrous system, particularly if any single plague is taught in isolation from the 12:12 “against the gods of Egypt” framing statement.

12. kev cawm dim (salvation) at the Red Sea (14:13, 15) read as shamanic soul-rescue (ua neeb) without YHWH named as sole agent in the same clause — the same collision already logged in Romans but sharpened here by the presence of a literal, physically enacted rescue narrative that makes the “ritual rescue” analogy feel more, not less, natural to a Hmong hearer.

13. Ark of the Covenant and Cherubim (25:10-22) read through the household-shrine/guardian-spirit frame, given the structural parallel to thaj xwm kab and to protective-spirit imagery; risk is elevated wherever a lesson describes the Ark’s physical construction in detail without pairing it to explicit covenant-content teaching (what it contains and why).

14. Firstborn redemption (13:1-16) read as arbitrary rather than as the direct positive counterpart to the tenth plague’s judgment, if the judgment-then-redemption pairing is not taught as a single unit; risk is comprehension-level rather than collision-level, but doctrinally significant for the Passover/Substitutionary Atonement doctrine’s coherence.

15. chuqqat olam (“statute forever,” 12:14) read either as an abolished irrelevance or a still-binding ritual obligation, absent the explicit New Testament reinterpretation-not-abolition teaching note (1 Cor 5:7); this is a lower-severity, comprehension-level ambiguity but is placed on the list because it directly affects how the core passage’s climactic institution-clause is received by the curriculum’s intended discipleship audience.

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5. Governing Note

This gap analysis identifies risk; it does not itself authorize any new permanent Hmong rendering. Every “New” term cited above remains pending formal TM-revision review per 12_ai_translation_requirements.md §2.4 and §9, and every Critical/High-risk item identified in §1 and §4 above routes to mandatory human theologian review before publication, consistent with the review-routing rule inherited from assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json. Where this document proposes a genuinely new lexical gap-fill not yet present in 08_core_glossary.md or bible_term_registry.json (notably: a dedicated mediator-office term, §2.1), that proposal must be formally logged for the next TM-revision cycle rather than treated as settled by its appearance here.