Core Glossary
08 — Core Glossary: Obadiah
This glossary extends, but never contradicts, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json. Terms already established in the baseline (§A) are reused exactly as recorded. New terms required by Obadiah’s Hebrew vocabulary and OT setting (§B–§F) are introduced here for the first time in this Language Package and must be added to translation_memory.json in Phase 1 Step 8 / Phase 2 pre-flight before any segment translation begins.
§A — Reused Baseline Terms (Mandarin rendering locked; do not alter)
| Term | Mandarin | Pinyin | Baseline Risk | Obadiah Context Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| lord | 主 | zhǔ | Critical | Component of 主耶和华 (Adonai YHWH), 1:1 |
| god (generic noun) | 神 | Shén | Critical | Used only for generic-deity contexts; NOT for the covenant name יהוה (see §B) |
| holy | 圣洁 | shèngjié | High | 1:17, applied to Zion as a place, not a person; root reused in 圣山 (§C) |
| covenant | 约 | yuē | High | 1:7 — here denotes a human political alliance, NOT God’s covenant; mandatory contextual note required (see 07_semantic_analysis.md, v.7) |
| gentiles | 外邦人 | wàibāngrén | Medium | NOT to be used for Obadiah’s כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם; reserved for NT individual Jew/Gentile contrast. See new term “nations” (§C) |
| election | 拣选 | jiǎnxuǎn | High | Conceptual link (not lexical identity) to Obadiah’s remnant/פְלֵיטָה theology |
| adoption | 儿子的名分 | érzi de míngfèn | High | Conceptual link (not lexical identity) to Obadiah’s inheritance/מוֹרָשָׁה theology |
| kingdom_of_god | 神的国 | Shén de guó | Medium | Distinct Chinese compound from Obadiah’s 国权 (§D); bridging note mandatory (see §D) |
| prophecy / prophet | 预言 / 先知 | yùyán / xiānzhī | Low/Medium | Underlies 默示 (vision) doctrine framing, §E |
| david, israel, jesus, god | (as recorded) | — | Critical | Retained exactly; not independently at issue in Obadiah but relevant for any cross-references drawn in teaching material |
§B — Divine Name and Prophetic-Authority Formulas (New Terms)
| Term | Hebrew (translit.) | Mandarin | Pinyin | Risk | Doctrine | Notes / Rejected Alternatives |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YHWH (covenant name) | יְהוָה (YHWH) | 耶和华 | Yēhéhuá | Critical | Day of the Lord / all doctrines | Standard CUV transliteration of the Tetragrammaton, distinct from the baseline’s generic 神. Must be used wherever the Hebrew text specifically names יהוה (vv. 1, 4, 8, 15, 18, 21), never softened to 神 or 上帝. Extends, does not contradict, the baseline: Romans (NT Greek) never required this distinction, but Obadiah (Hebrew OT) does. Rejected: 神 (loses covenant-name specificity), 上帝 (rejected per baseline’s Term Question rationale), 天/老天爷 (impersonal folk Heaven). |
| Lord GOD | אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה (Adonai YHWH) | 主耶和华 | Zhǔ Yēhéhuá | Critical | Inspiration of Scripture / Divine authority | Compound of baseline 主 + new 耶和华. Solemn self-identification formula opening the oracle (1:1). Must not be abbreviated to 主 alone (loses covenant-name specificity) or to 耶和华 alone (loses the sovereignty title). |
| declares the LORD / the LORD has spoken | נְאֻם־יְהוָה / כִּי יְהוָה דִּבֵּר | 耶和华说 / 这是耶和华说的 | Yēhéhuá shuō / zhè shì Yēhéhuá shuō de | Medium | Inspiration of Scripture | Fixed prophetic-certainty formula (vv. 4, 8, 18). Must retain 耶和华, not a generic “as it is written.” |
| vision (prophetic superscription) | חָזוֹן (chazon) | 默示 | mòshì | High | Inspiration of Scripture | 1:1. Distinguish from divination/fortune-telling (占卜, 算卦, 算命 — already rejected under baseline prophet/prophecy). This is unsolicited revelation from a personal God to his prophet, not a technique for reading fate. |
§C — Judgment, Pride, and Violence Terms (New Terms)
| Term | Hebrew (translit.) | Mandarin | Pinyin | Risk | Doctrine | Notes / Rejected Alternatives |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pride / arrogance | זָדוֹן (zadon) | 狂傲 | kuáng’ào | High | Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People | 1:3. CUV-established rendering. Must be taught as rebellion against God’s sovereignty specifically (self-exalting defiance, “who will bring me down?”), not merely a socially rude character flaw — a distinction Chinese readers may otherwise miss given existing Confucian humility-ethics that already condemn arrogance on purely social grounds. |
| boastful speech | תַּגְדֵּל פִּיךָ (tagdil picha, lit. “enlarge your mouth”) | 说狂傲的话 | shuō kuáng’ào de huà | Medium | Judgment on Pride | 1:12. Idiomatic; rendered by reusing the 狂傲 root from 1:3 for book-internal lexical consistency rather than a literal “enlarge the mouth,” which is unintelligible in Mandarin. |
| violence | חָמָס (chamas) | 强暴 | qiángbào | High | Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People | 1:10. CUV-established rendering. Must always be paired contextually with the kinship term 兄弟 (brother) to retain the text’s specific charge: fratricidal betrayal, not generic criminal violence. |
| brother (kinship) | אָח (ach) | 兄弟 | xiōngdì | Medium | Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People | 1:10, 12. Refers to the literal Esau/Jacob sibling relationship underlying the Edom/Israel national relationship. Teaching material should draw out the covenantal-theological weight of fraternal betrayal, not only its social-etiquette dimension. |
| gloating over calamity | שָׂמַח (samach, negated) | 因此欢乐 (negated: 不当因此欢乐) | yīncǐ huānlè | Medium | God’s Justice for the Oppressed | 1:12. Avoid defaulting to the modern idiom 幸灾乐祸 for register consistency with the plainer CUV verb form; acceptable as an explanatory gloss only. |
| forever (irreversible judgment) | לְעוֹלָם (le’olam) | 永远 | yǒngyuǎn | Low | Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People | 1:10. Standard, unambiguous. |
| recompense / retribution | גְּמוּל (gemul) | 报应 | bàoyìng | Critical | God’s Justice for the Oppressed / Day of the Lord | 1:15. CUV-established rendering, but this exact term is flagged as a REJECTED alternative in the baseline sin entry due to its folk-Buddhist karmic-retribution association (因果报应). Retained here (parallel to the baseline’s treatment of 义) because it is the established translation, but MANDATORY translator note required at every occurrence: this is personal, deliberate divine repayment for a specific act (Edom’s violence), administered by a personal Judge — not an impersonal, self-operating karmic ledger. |
| my people (covenant possession) | עַמִּי (ammi) | 我民 | wǒ mín | High | God’s Justice for the Oppressed | 1:13. First-person divine possessive; must not be flattened to a third-person ethnic/political label (“the Judahites”) — the doctrine depends on retaining God’s personal ownership claim over the oppressed party. |
§D — Day of the Lord and Kingdom Terms (New Terms)
| Term | Hebrew (translit.) | Mandarin | Pinyin | Risk | Doctrine | Notes / Rejected Alternatives |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day of the LORD | יוֹם־יְהוָה (yom-YHWH) | 耶和华的日子 | Yēhéhuá de rìzi | Critical | The Day of the Lord for All Nations | 1:15 (cf. 1:8’s local “that day” as forward-echo). CUV’s Obadiah 1:15 itself uses the fuller descriptive phrase 耶和华降罚的日子 (“the day when the LORD executes punishment”) — both are acceptable, but the technical glossary term for cross-book/cross-curriculum consistency (e.g. with Joel, Amos where CUV uses the literal phrase) should be 耶和华的日子. Must not be read as generic apocalyptic doom in the mold of Chinese dynastic-cycle historiography (治乱循环) — this is a personal, once-for-all, named-divine-actor reckoning. |
| all the nations | כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם (kol ha-goyim) | 万国 | wàn guó | Medium | The Day of the Lord for All Nations | 1:15-16. Distinct from baseline’s 外邦人 (reserved for the NT individual Jew/Gentile soteriological contrast). Here denotes corporate political-national entities under universal judgment. |
| holy mountain | הַר קָדְשִׁי (har qodshi) | 圣山 | shèng shān | Medium | The Day of the Lord / Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord | 1:16-17 (= Zion). Reuses the 圣- root from baseline 圣洁/圣灵/圣徒. Must not be assimilated to the Chinese cultural category of geomantically or ritually powerful sacred mountains (e.g. the Daoist/Buddhist 五岳 tradition) — Zion’s holiness is relational (it is YHWH’s own dwelling), not innate to the terrain. |
| escaped remnant | פְלֵיטָה (peleitah) | 逃脱的人 | táotuō de rén | High | God’s Justice for the Oppressed / Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord | 1:17 (positive, of Zion); cf. 1:14 פְּלִיטִים (fugitives, of those Edom persecuted). Must be taught as a divinely elected, sovereignly preserved remnant (conceptually resonant with, though not lexically identical to, Romans 11:5’s 余数), not survivors of mere chance. |
| survivor (negative) | שָׂרִיד (sarid) | 余剩的人 | yúshèng de rén | Low | God’s Justice for the Oppressed | 1:18, negated (“no survivor for the house of Esau”) — deliberate mirror-opposite of the positive remnant term above; keep the two visually/lexically distinct in teaching material despite the shared root idea. |
| possession / inheritance | מוֹרָשָׁה (morashah); verb יָרַש (yarash) | 地业 (noun); 得为业 / 得 (verb) | dìyè; dé wéi yè / dé | Medium | Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord | 1:17, 19-20. Restored covenant land-inheritance; conceptually linked to (not lexically identical with) the baseline adoption doctrine’s inheritance-rights emphasis. Must not be read as ordinary secular real-estate acquisition or political annexation. |
| exile | גָּלוּת (galut) | 被掳的 | bèi lǔ de | Medium | Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord | 1:20. Standard OT term for the Babylonian-era captivity; requires background explanation for readers with low OT narrative literacy. Its reversal here is gracious divine restoration, not a mere swing of political fortune. |
| deliverers / saviors (plural human agents) | מוֹשִׁעִים (moshi’im) | 拯救者 | zhěngjiùzhě | Critical | Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord / God’s Justice for the Oppressed | 1:21. Shares the י-שׁ-ע root with “salvation” (יְשׁוּעָה) and the name Joshua/Jesus, and CUV precedent (Judges 3:9, 15) supports 拯救者. MUST NOT be rendered or taught as 救主 (Savior, Christ’s exclusive CUV title) or conflated with the baseline’s 救恩 (salvation) doctrine. Mandatory note: these are historically situated, plural, God-raised human deliverer-agents (Judges-pattern), typologically anticipating but never replacing Christ’s unique salvific work. |
| to judge | שָׁפַט (shafat) | 审判 | shěnpàn | High | God’s Justice for the Oppressed | 1:21. Divinely commissioned justice-execution on behalf of the oppressed, not ordinary secular jurisprudence (cf. baseline’s rejection of 法律 for 律法/law — same distinguishing principle: divine, not merely civil, justice). |
| the kingship / the kingdom (sovereignty) | הַמְּלוּכָה (ha-melukhah) | 国权 | guóquán | Critical | The Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord | 1:21, the book’s theological climax. Distinct Chinese compound from baseline’s 神的国 (which renders NT Greek βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ). LXX renders מְלוּכָה here with the same Greek word (βασιλεία) used throughout the NT for “kingdom of God” — establishing real theological continuity that MUST be bridged by mandatory translator note even though the Hebrew and NT Greek source terms differ and the Chinese renderings (国权 vs. 神的国) are not identical. Severe risk of a this-worldly, Mandate-of-Heaven-style dynastic-succession misreading (a “better ruler” replacing a fallen one) rather than the text’s actual claim: unique, permanent, non-transferable, exclusively divine sovereignty. |
| belongs to the LORD | לַיהוָה (la-YHWH) | 归耶和华 | guī Yēhéhuá | Critical | The Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord | 1:21, final clause of the book. Must retain 耶和华 (not 神) to preserve the climactic personal covenant-name specificity; must not be rendered with an impersonal “belongs to Heaven” construction. |
§E — Proper Names (New Terms)
All proper names below are Low risk (standard CUV transliterations); listed for completeness per full-book coverage.
| English | Hebrew (translit.) | Mandarin | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edom | אֱדוֹם (Edom) | 以东 | Yǐdōng |
| Esau | עֵשָׂו (Esav) | 以扫 | Yǐsǎo |
| Jacob | יַעֲקֹב (Ya’akov) | 雅各 | Yǎgè |
| Joseph | יוֹסֵף (Yosef) | 约瑟 | Yuēsè |
| Judah (people) | יְהוּדָה (Yehudah) | 犹大 | Yóudà |
| Zion | צִיּוֹן (Tziyon) | 锡安 | Xī’ān |
| Jerusalem | יְרוּשָׁלַם (Yerushalam) | 耶路撒冷 | Yēlùsālěng |
| Teman | תֵּימָן (Teman) | 提幔 | Tímàn |
| Negeb | הַנֶּגֶב (ha-Negev) | 南地 | Nándì |
| Shephelah | הַשְּׁפֵלָה (ha-Shephelah) | 高原 | Gāoyuán |
| Philistines | פְּלִשְׁתִּים (Pelishtim) | 非利士人 | Fēilìshìrén |
| Ephraim | אֶפְרַיִם (Ephrayim) | 以法莲 | Yǐfǎlián |
| Samaria | שֹׁמְרוֹן (Shomron) | 撒玛利亚 | Sāmǎlìyà |
| Benjamin | בִּנְיָמִן (Binyamin) | 便雅悯 | Biànyǎmǐn |
| Gilead | הַגִּלְעָד (ha-Gilead) | 基列 | Jīliè |
| Canaan / Canaanites | כְּנַעֲנִים (Kena’anim) | 迦南人 | Jiānánrén |
| Zarephath | צַרְפַת (Tzarephat) | 撒勒法 | Sālèfǎ |
| Sepharad | סְפָרַד (Sepharad) | 西法拉德 | Xīfǎlādé |
§F — Household / Clan Designations (New Terms)
| Term | Hebrew (translit.) | Mandarin | Pinyin | Risk | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| house of Jacob | בֵּית יַעֲקֹב | 雅各家 | Yǎgè jiā | Low | 1:17-18. Covenant nation of Israel corporately. |
| house of Esau | בֵּית עֵשָׂו | 以扫家 | Yǐsǎo jiā | Low | 1:18. Edom corporately. |
| house of Joseph | בֵּית יוֹסֵף | 约瑟家 | Yuēsè jiā | Low | 1:18. Northern tribes corporately. |
| fire / flame / stubble (judgment imagery) | אֵשׁ / לֶהָבָה / קַשׁ | 火 / 火焰 / 碎秸 | huǒ / huǒyàn / suì jiē | Medium | 1:18. Vivid judgment imagery; must retain personal divine agency behind the image (executed at YHWH’s spoken word, per 1:18’s closing formula), not impersonal cosmic combustion. |
Glossary Governance Note
All §B–§F terms above are new to this Language Package and are not present in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json. Per the Translation Memory Load and Enforcement Instructions (see 12_ai_translation_requirements.md), each new term must be:
- Recorded in
translation_memory.jsonwith its assigned risk level before any Phase 2 segment translation of Obadiah begins. - Cross-checked against the baseline’s existing Critical/High terms (§A) to confirm no contradiction — confirmed above for every entry (e.g., 耶和华 extends rather than replaces 神; 国权 is bridged to, but kept distinct from, 神的国).
- Flagged for human theologian review prior to translation memory finalization, per the Critical/High risk routing already established in
doctrine_risk_registry.json’s review-routing convention: this glossary designates §B (all Critical), §C (孤 gemul/报应 Critical; zadon/chamas/ammi High), and §D (moshi’im/melukhah/la-YHWH Critical; day-of-the-lord Critical; peleitah/shafat High) for mandatory human theologian review before Phase 2 translation proceeds.
Critical Risk Terms
Lord
Approved rendering: 主
Transliteration: zhǔ
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ (Romans baseline); Sovereignty and Personal Name of YHWH (Obadiah)
Rejected alternatives: 主人, 老爷
Original: אָדוֹן / κύριος (LXX)
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. In Obadiah 1:1 this term functions ONLY as the sovereignty-title component of the compound divine address 主耶和华 (Adonai YHWH) — see new term lord_god_adonai_yhwh — not as a standalone Christological confession as in Romans 10:9. Must not be softened toward 主人 or 老爷 in either context.
God
Approved rendering: 神
Transliteration: Shén
Doctrine: Deity of Christ (Romans baseline); Sovereignty and Personal Name of YHWH (Obadiah)
Rejected alternatives: 上帝, 天, 老天爷
Original: אֱלֹהִים
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. Obadiah’s Hebrew text overwhelmingly prefers the covenant name יְהוָה (see new term yhwh, rendered 耶和华) over the generic אֱלֹהִים; 神 is not independently at issue in this book’s primary text but is retained for any cross-reference material. Doctrinal contexts must make monotheism explicit rather than assume it, per the baseline’s note on 神 also functioning as a common noun for any deity/spirit in folk usage.
Jesus
Approved rendering: 耶稣
Transliteration: Yēsū
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ (Romans baseline); Divine Deliverance through Human Agents (Obadiah, contrastive cross-reference)
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. Not textually present in Obadiah, but retained because the Hebrew root of Obadiah 1:21’s ‘deliverers’ (מוֹשִׁעִים, see new term deliverers) shares its root (י-שׁ-ע) with the name Joshua/Jesus (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ/Ἰησοῦς). Teaching material referencing this shared root MUST make clear that Obadiah’s plural human deliverers typologically anticipate but never replace or diminish Christ’s unique, sufficient salvific work.
Yhwh
Approved rendering: 耶和华
Transliteration: Yēhéhuá
Doctrine: Sovereignty and Personal Name of YHWH
Rejected alternatives: 神, 上帝, 天, 老天爷
Original: יְהוָה
Category: God
NEW TERM (Obadiah). The personal covenant name of God, distinct from the baseline’s generic 神. Must be used at every occurrence where the Hebrew text specifically names יהוה (Obadiah 1:1, 1:4, 1:8, 1:15, 1:18, 1:21), never softened to 神, 上帝, or the impersonal folk terms 天/老天爷. Preserves the personal, named-divine-actor specificity anchoring every judgment and kingship claim in the book, including its climactic final clause (1:21).
Lord God Adonai Yhwh
Approved rendering: 主耶和华
Transliteration: Zhǔ Yēhéhuá
Doctrine: Sovereignty and Personal Name of YHWH
Rejected alternatives: 单独使用主 (Lord alone), 单独使用耶和华 (YHWH alone)
Original: אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה
Category: God
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Solemn compound divine title (אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה), ‘my Lord, YHWH,’ opening the oracle at 1:1. Combines the baseline’s established 主 with the new term 耶和华. Must never be abbreviated to either component alone — 主 alone loses covenant-name specificity; 耶和华 alone loses the sovereignty title. Both carry independent theological weight.
Recompense
Approved rendering: 报应
Transliteration: bàoyìng
Doctrine: God’s Justice for the Oppressed; Divine Retribution and Recompense
Rejected alternatives: 因果 (explicitly karmic framing), 自食其果 (idiom, still karma-flavored)
Original: גְּמוּל
Category: Justice
NEW TERM (Obadiah). CUV-established rendering of גְּמוּל (1:15). CRITICAL COLLISION: this exact term is elsewhere flagged as a REJECTED alternative in the Romans baseline’s ‘sin’ entry due to its folk-Buddhist association with impersonal karmic retribution (因果报应) accruing automatically across a person’s fortune/lineage. Retained here on the model of the baseline’s treatment of 义 (retained but always flagged) because no better CUV-consistent alternative exists. MANDATORY translator note required at every occurrence: this is personal, deliberate divine repayment for a specific act (Edom’s violence against Jacob), administered by a personal Judge (耶和华) — not an automatic, self-operating karmic ledger.
Day Of The Lord
Approved rendering: 耶和华的日子
Transliteration: Yēhéhuá de rìzi
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord for All Nations
Rejected alternatives: 那日 (impersonal, drops the covenant name), 天谴之日 (impersonal folk term, ‘heaven’s punishment’)
Original: יוֹם־יְהוָה
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders יוֹם־יְהוָה (1:15; forward-echoed at 1:8’s local ‘that day’). CUV’s own Obadiah 1:15 uses the fuller descriptive 耶和华降罚的日子 (‘the day when the LORD executes punishment’) — both acceptable, but 耶和华的日子 is the fixed glossary term for cross-book consistency (e.g. Joel, Amos). Must not be read as generic apocalyptic doom in the mold of Chinese dynastic-cycle historiography (治乱循环); this is a personal, once-for-all, named-divine-actor reckoning.
Deliverers
Approved rendering: 拯救者
Transliteration: zhěngjiùzhě
Doctrine: The Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord; Divine Deliverance through Human Agents
Rejected alternatives: 救主 (Savior, the CUV Christological title reserved exclusively for Christ), 救恩 (the baseline’s salvation doctrine noun; noun-category mismatch)
Original: מוֹשִׁעִים
Category: Kingdom
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders מוֹשִׁעִים (1:21), following CUV precedent at Judges 3:9, 3:15. Shares its root (י-שׁ-ע) with ‘salvation’ (יְשׁוּעָה) and the name Joshua/Jesus. MANDATORY translator note required at every occurrence: these are plural, historically situated human deliverer-agents in the Judges-era pattern, God-raised for this specific judgment/restoration act — they typologically anticipate but NEVER replace or diminish Christ’s unique, sufficient salvific work. Never gloss as 救主; never directly identify with 救恩.
The Kingship
Approved rendering: 国权
Transliteration: guóquán
Doctrine: The Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord
Rejected alternatives: 王权 (too strongly throne/human-monarch-coded), 天下 (‘all under heaven,’ this-worldly political order, already rejected in the baseline for kingdom_of_god), 王朝 (dynasty, implies transferable succession)
Original: הַמְּלוּכָה
Category: Kingdom
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders הַמְּלוּכָה (1:21), the book’s theological climax. Lexically DISTINCT Chinese compound from the baseline’s 神的国 (see kingdom_of_god); the LXX renders both with βασιλεία, establishing continuity requiring a MANDATORY bridging note even though the Chinese forms differ. SEVERE RISK: Mandarin’s rich dynastic-succession vocabulary primes a Mandate-of-Heaven-style misreading (a ‘better,’ more legitimate ruler receiving a Mandate the old one forfeited) rather than the text’s actual claim of unique, permanent, non-transferable, exclusively divine sovereignty that was never legitimately anyone else’s to hold.
Belongs To The Lord
Approved rendering: 归耶和华
Transliteration: guī Yēhéhuá
Doctrine: The Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord
Rejected alternatives: 归天 (impersonal ‘belongs to Heaven’), 天命所归 (Mandate-of-Heaven political-legitimacy language)
Original: לַיהוָה
Category: Kingdom
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders לַיהוָה, the book’s final possessive clause (1:21) — the grammatical and theological climax of the entire book. Must retain 耶和华 (never 神, and never an impersonal ‘belongs to Heaven’ construction), preserving the climactic personal covenant-name specificity that resolves everything contested in the book (land, honor, violence, judgment) into a single named divine possessor.
High Risk Terms
Holy
Approved rendering: 圣洁
Transliteration: shèngjié
Doctrine: Sanctification (Romans baseline); Holiness of God’s Dwelling Place (Obadiah)
Rejected alternatives: 清净, 圣人般的
Original: קֹדֶשׁ
Category: Sanctification
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. In Obadiah 1:17 (קֹדֶשׁ) this root is applied to Zion as a PLACE, not to a person, and underlies the new compound 圣山 (holy mountain, see holy_mountain). Must not be confused with 清净 (Daoist/Buddhist ritual purity attained through practice); Zion’s holiness is relational — set apart because it is YHWH’s own dwelling and possession, not because of innate power in the terrain.
Covenant
Approved rendering: 约
Transliteration: yuē
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant (Romans baseline); Covenant Kinship and Betrayal (Obadiah)
Rejected alternatives: 合同, 契约
Original: בְּרִית
Category: Covenant
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. MANDATORY CONTEXTUAL EXCEPTION at Obadiah 1:7 (בְּרִית): here 约 denotes a human political/military treaty alliance between Edom and its neighbors, NOT God’s gracious covenant with his people — the sense governing nearly every other occurrence of this term across the combined Language Package. A translator note distinguishing this referent is REQUIRED at 1:7; omitting it risks implying Edom itself stood in a divine covenant relationship parallel to Israel’s.
Election
Approved rendering: 拣选
Transliteration: jiǎnxuǎn
Doctrine: Effectual Calling (Romans baseline); Remnant and Restoration (Obadiah, conceptual link)
Rejected alternatives: 天命, 命运, 缘分
Original: בָּחַר (root; cf. NT ἐκλογή)
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. Not lexically present in Obadiah’s Hebrew text, but used in teaching material to connect Obadiah’s remnant theology (the ‘escaped ones’ sovereignly preserved on Zion, 1:17, see escaped_remnant) to this established doctrine. Must not be rendered 天命, 命运, or 缘分.
Adoption
Approved rendering: 儿子的名分
Transliteration: érzi de míngfèn
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family (Romans baseline); Inheritance and Restored Possession (Obadiah, conceptual link)
Rejected alternatives: 过继, 收养
Original: cf. Hebrew מוֹרָשָׁה (inheritance); NT υἱοθεσία
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. Conceptually linked (not lexically identical) to Obadiah’s restored covenant land-inheritance theme (מוֹרָשָׁה, 1:17, 19-20; see possession_inheritance). Useful in teaching material for connecting Obadiah’s land-inheritance motif to the fuller inheritance believers receive in Christ, without asserting lexical identity.
Vision
Approved rendering: 默示
Transliteration: mòshì
Doctrine: Inspiration and Authority of Prophetic Revelation
Rejected alternatives: 占卜, 算卦, 算命
Original: חָזוֹן
Category: Prophecy
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Prophetic-superscription term (חָזוֹן, 1:1), the CUV convention for prophetic-book openings. Must be distinguished from divination or fortune-telling (占卜, 算卦, 算命), widely practiced Chinese predictive-fortune traditions; this is unsolicited revelation from a personal God to his chosen prophet, not a technique for reading fate.
Pride
Approved rendering: 狂傲
Transliteration: kuáng’ào
Doctrine: Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People
Rejected alternatives: 骄傲 (generic, weaker connotation), 自大
Original: זָדוֹן
Category: Sin
NEW TERM (Obadiah). CUV-established rendering of זָדוֹן (1:3). MANDATORY translator note required at first occurrence: Edom’s 狂傲 is specifically theological defiance (‘who will bring me down?’) — rebellion against God’s sovereignty, a vertical offense against God — not merely a social-etiquette vice, which is how existing Confucian humility-ethics (谦逊 as virtue) will otherwise read it. Reused at 1:12 via the boastful_speech idiom.
Violence
Approved rendering: 强暴
Transliteration: qiángbào
Doctrine: Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People
Rejected alternatives: 暴力 (generic secular violence, loses covenant-kinship specificity)
Original: חָמָס
Category: Sin
NEW TERM (Obadiah). CUV-established rendering of חָמָס (1:10). Must always be paired contextually with 兄弟 (brother, see new term brother) to retain the text’s specific charge: fratricidal betrayal of covenant kin, not generic criminal violence.
My People
Approved rendering: 我民
Transliteration: wǒ mín
Doctrine: God’s Justice for the Oppressed
Rejected alternatives: 犹大人 (third-person ethnic/political label, loses the divine possessive)
Original: עַמִּי
Category: Justice
NEW TERM (Obadiah). CUV rendering of עַמִּי (1:13), YHWH’s first-person covenant-possession claim over the victims of Edom’s violence. Must NOT be flattened into a third-person ethnic/political label; the doctrine of God’s Justice for the Oppressed depends on retaining God’s personal ownership claim over the oppressed party.
Escaped Remnant
Approved rendering: 逃脱的人
Transliteration: táotuō de rén
Doctrine: God’s Justice for the Oppressed; Remnant and Restoration
Rejected alternatives: 幸存者 (mere survivor, carries no election/preservation implication)
Original: פְלֵיטָה
Category: Remnant
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders פְלֵיטָה (1:17), the divinely preserved survivors on Zion. Must be taught as a divinely elected, sovereignly preserved remnant (conceptually resonant with, though not lexically identical to, the baseline’s Romans 11:5 remnant/election theology, see election), not survivors of mere chance or of Edom’s incomplete violence (cf. 1:14’s negative-context פְּלִיטִים).
To Judge
Approved rendering: 审判
Transliteration: shěnpàn
Doctrine: God’s Justice for the Oppressed
Rejected alternatives: 法律 (secular civil law/jurisprudence, already rejected in the baseline for 律法)
Original: שָׁפַט
Category: Justice
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders שָׁפַט (1:21), the deliverers’ judgment on ‘Mount Esau.’ Must be distinguished from ordinary secular jurisprudence; this is divinely commissioned justice, executed through God’s appointed agents on behalf of the oppressed, not an impersonal legal proceeding.
Medium Risk Terms
Gentiles
Approved rendering: 外邦人
Transliteration: wàibāngrén
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles (Romans baseline)
Rejected alternatives: 夷人, 外国人
Original: ἔθνη (LXX rendering of גּוֹיִם)
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. HARD NON-USE RULE for Obadiah: 外邦人 must NEVER be used to render כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם (‘all the nations,’ Obadiah 1:15-16), which denotes corporate political-national entities under universal judgment, a distinct semantic register from the NT’s individual Jew/Gentile soteriological contrast. Use the new term all_the_nations (万国) for Obadiah’s ‘nations’ instead.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: 神的国
Transliteration: Shén de guó
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission (Romans baseline); The Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord (Obadiah, bridging term)
Rejected alternatives: 天下, 王朝
Original: cf. Hebrew הַמְּלוּכָה; NT βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Kingdom
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. Theologically continuous with, but LEXICALLY DISTINCT from, Obadiah’s climactic הַמְּלוּכָה (rendered 国权, see new term the_kingship). The LXX renders both the Hebrew מְלוּכָה and the NT Greek βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ with the same Greek word (βασιλεία), establishing real theological continuity that the Chinese surface forms do not show. A MANDATORY bridging translator note is required wherever both are taught together: Obadiah 1:21’s 国权就归耶和华了 is the OT root and guarantee of the NT’s fuller 神的国 proclaimed by Christ.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: 预言
Transliteration: yùyán
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy (Romans baseline); Inspiration and Authority of Prophetic Revelation (Obadiah)
Rejected alternatives: 算卦, 占卜
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. Underlies the doctrinal framing for Obadiah’s revelatory vision (חָזוֹן, see new term vision) and its prophetic-certainty formulas (see new term declares_the_lord). Distinguish from 算卦/占卜 (divination), a widely practiced Chinese predictive-fortune tradition; biblical prophecy is revelation from a personal God, not a technique for reading fate.
David
Approved rendering: 大卫
Transliteration: Dàwèi
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant (Romans baseline)
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. Not textually present in Obadiah’s Hebrew text, but retained for cross-reference consistency in teaching material that connects Obadiah’s Zion/kingship climax (1:17, 21) to the broader Davidic covenant tradition and its NT fulfillment.
Israel
Approved rendering: 以色列
Transliteration: Yǐsèliè
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles (Romans baseline); Covenant Kinship and Betrayal (Obadiah)
Original: יִשְׂרָאֵל
Category: Proper Names
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. The covenant people descended from Jacob, implicitly in view throughout Obadiah as the wronged party (‘my people,’ ‘your brother Jacob’) whom Edom betrayed.
Declares The Lord
Approved rendering: 耶和华说 / 这是耶和华说的
Transliteration: Yēhéhuá shuō / zhè shì Yēhéhuá shuō de
Doctrine: Inspiration and Authority of Prophetic Revelation
Rejected alternatives: 经上记着说 (generic ‘as it is written,’ loses the active divine speaker)
Original: נְאֻם־יְהוָה / כִּי יְהוָה דִּבֵּר
Category: Prophecy
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Fixed prophetic-certainty formula (נְאֻם־יְהוָה / כִּי יְהוָה דִּבֵּר) recurring at 1:4, 1:8, 1:18. Must retain 耶和华 at every occurrence — never generalized to an anonymous authoritative-text attribution — so the certainty of fulfillment remains tied to an active, personal divine speaker. Use identical phrasing at all three occurrences rather than varying for stylistic freshness.
Boastful Speech
Approved rendering: 说狂傲的话
Transliteration: shuō kuáng’ào de huà
Doctrine: Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People
Rejected alternatives: 张大你的口 (literal rendering of the Hebrew idiom, unintelligible in Mandarin)
Original: תַּגְדֵּל פִּיךָ
Category: Sin
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Idiomatic rendering of תַּגְדֵּל פִּיךָ, lit. ‘you enlarge your mouth’ (1:12). Deliberately reuses the 狂傲 root established at 1:3 for book-internal lexical consistency, rather than a literal or newly-invented idiom.
Gloating Over Calamity
Approved rendering: 不当因此欢乐
Transliteration: bù dāng yīncǐ huānlè
Doctrine: God’s Justice for the Oppressed
Rejected alternatives: 幸灾乐祸 (modern four-character idiom; acceptable only as explanatory gloss, not primary rendering, for register consistency)
Original: שָׂמַח (negated)
Category: Sin
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Negated construction rendering שָׁמַח (1:12) — illegitimate rejoicing over another’s calamity. One of the itemized sins constituting Edom’s oppression of the vulnerable, directly serving God’s Justice for the Oppressed doctrine.
All The Nations
Approved rendering: 万国
Transliteration: wàn guó
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord for All Nations
Rejected alternatives: 外邦人 (reserved exclusively for the NT individual Jew/Gentile soteriological contrast)
Original: כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם
Category: Kingdom
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם (1:15-16). Denotes corporate political-national entities under universal judgment, a distinct semantic register from 外邦人. HARD RULE: never substitute 外邦人 here; see the gentiles entry’s non-use note.
Holy Mountain
Approved rendering: 圣山
Transliteration: shèng shān
Doctrine: Holiness of God’s Dwelling Place; The Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord
Rejected alternatives: 清净山 (Daoist/Buddhist ritual-purity connotation)
Original: הַר קָדְשִׁי
Category: Kingdom
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders הַר קָדְשִׁי (1:16-17) = Mount Zion. Reuses the 圣- root from the baseline’s 圣洁/圣灵/圣徒. Must not be assimilated to the Chinese cultural category of geomantically or ritually powerful sacred mountains (e.g. the Daoist/Buddhist 五岳 tradition); Zion’s holiness is relational — holy because it is YHWH’s own dwelling, not because of innate power in the terrain.
Possession Inheritance
Approved rendering: 地业 (noun) / 得为业 (verb)
Transliteration: dìyè / dé wéi yè
Doctrine: The Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord; Inheritance and Restored Possession
Rejected alternatives: 房地产 (secular real estate), 领土 (secular territory/political annexation)
Original: מוֹרָשָׁה (noun); יָרַש (yarash, verb)
Category: Kingdom
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders the noun מוֹרָשָׁה and verb יָרַש (1:17, 19-20), covenant land-inheritance restored to Jacob’s house. Conceptually linked to (not lexically identical with) the baseline’s adoption doctrine’s inheritance-rights emphasis. Must not be read as ordinary secular real-estate acquisition or political annexation but as covenantal restoration secured by God.
Exile
Approved rendering: 被掳的
Transliteration: bèi lǔ de
Doctrine: The Kingdom’s Ultimate Belonging to the Lord; Exile and Divine Restoration
Original: גָּלוּת
Category: Kingdom
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders גָּלוּת (1:20), the standard OT term used throughout Isaiah/Jeremiah/Ezekiel for the Babylonian-era captivity. Requires background explanation for readers with low OT narrative literacy: exile is the covenant consequence of Israel’s own sin, and its reversal here is gracious divine restoration, not an automatic swing of political fortune.
Fire Flame Stubble
Approved rendering: 火 / 火焰 / 碎秸
Transliteration: huǒ / huǒyàn / suì jiē
Doctrine: Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People
Original: אֵשׁ / לֶהָבָה / קַשׁ
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders אֵשׁ / לֶהָבָה / קַשׁ (1:18), judgment imagery in which Jacob/Joseph become consuming fire and flame while Esau becomes the consumed stubble. Must retain personal divine agency behind the image — explicitly executed at YHWH’s spoken word per the closing formula (see declares_the_lord) — not impersonal cosmic combustion or a generic natural-disaster metaphor.
Brother
Approved rendering: 兄弟
Transliteration: xiōngdì
Doctrine: Covenant Kinship and Betrayal
Original: אָח
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders אָח (1:10, 1:12), the literal Esau/Jacob sibling relationship underlying the Edom/Israel national relationship. Chinese fraternal-loyalty ethics (兄友弟恭, one of the Five Relationships) could reduce the sin to a family-etiquette failure rather than the covenant-theological betrayal the text intends; teaching material must draw out the deeper register. Must always co-occur contextually with 强暴 (violence, see violence entry) to preserve the fratricidal-betrayal charge.
Low Risk Terms
Prophet
Approved rendering: 先知
Transliteration: xiānzhī
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture (Romans baseline); Inspiration and Authority of Prophetic Revelation (Obadiah)
Rejected alternatives: 算命先生
Inherited from Romans package; Mandarin rendering unchanged. Obadiah himself is a 先知 (prophet, per the book’s superscription, 1:1); distinguish from 算命先生 (a fortune-teller), per the baseline note.
Forever
Approved rendering: 永远
Transliteration: yǒngyuǎn
Doctrine: Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People
Original: לְעוֹלָם
Category: Justice
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard, unambiguous rendering of לְעוֹלָם (1:10), describing the irreversible totality of Edom’s judgment (‘cut off forever’).
Survivor Negative
Approved rendering: 余剩的人
Transliteration: yúshèng de rén
Doctrine: Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People
Original: שָׂרִיד
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders שָׂרִיד used negatively (1:18) — Edom will have NO survivor, the deliberate mirror-opposite of Zion’s preserved remnant. Must remain visually and lexically distinct from escaped_remnant (逃脱的人) in teaching material despite the shared root idea, to preserve the deliberate asymmetry between the two houses’ fates.
Wisdom
Approved rendering: 智慧 / 智慧人
Transliteration: zhìhuì / zhìhuìrén
Doctrine: Wisdom and Human Self-Reliance
Original: חָכְמָה / חֲכָמִים
Category: Wisdom
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders חָכְמָה / חֲכָמִים (1:8), Edom’s proverbial wisdom (cf. Teman, Jeremiah 49:7), powerless to avert divine judgment. No significant syncretism risk; minor risk of secular flattening (‘even smart people can be unlucky’) rather than conveying that no human resource can shield a nation from YHWH’s specific judgment.
House Of Jacob
Approved rendering: 雅各家
Transliteration: Yǎgè jiā
Doctrine: Covenant Kinship and Betrayal
Original: בֵּית יַעֲקֹב
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders בֵּית יַעֲקֹב (1:17-18), the covenant nation of Israel corporately. 家 (household/clan) may evoke Chinese ancestral-clan (宗族) categories; a brief clarification that this is a covenantal, not merely biological-lineage, designation is prudent.
House Of Esau
Approved rendering: 以扫家
Transliteration: Yǐsǎo jiā
Doctrine: Judgment on Pride and Violence against God’s People
Original: בֵּית עֵשָׂו
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders בֵּית עֵשָׂו (1:18), Edom corporately, the object of the book’s judgment oracle. Standard compound, parallels house_of_jacob.
House Of Joseph
Approved rendering: 约瑟家
Transliteration: Yuēsè jiā
Doctrine: God’s Justice for the Oppressed
Original: בֵּית יוֹסֵף
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Renders בֵּית יוֹסֵף (1:18), the northern tribes of Israel corporately, named alongside the house of Jacob as agents of judgment on Edom.
Edom
Approved rendering: 以东
Transliteration: Yǐdōng
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: אֱדוֹם
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. The nation descended from Esau, object of Obadiah’s judgment oracle.
Esau
Approved rendering: 以扫
Transliteration: Yǐsǎo
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: עֵשָׂו
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Jacob’s twin brother, ancestor of Edom.
Jacob
Approved rendering: 雅各
Transliteration: Yǎgè
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: יַעֲקֹב
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Esau’s twin brother, ancestor of Israel, referred to as ‘your brother Jacob’ in the charge against Edom.
Joseph
Approved rendering: 约瑟
Transliteration: Yuēsè
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: יוֹסֵף
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Ancestor of the northern tribes of Israel.
Judah
Approved rendering: 犹大
Transliteration: Yóudà
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: יְהוּדָה
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. The southern kingdom/tribe, implicit victim of Edom’s betrayal.
Zion
Approved rendering: 锡安
Transliteration: Xī’ān
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: צִיּוֹן
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Jerusalem’s temple mount, the seat of YHWH’s kingship and site of the escaped remnant.
Jerusalem
Approved rendering: 耶路撒冷
Transliteration: Yēlùsālěng
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: יְרוּשָׁלַם
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. The city whose exiled community is named in Obadiah 1:20.
Teman
Approved rendering: 提幔
Transliteration: Tímàn
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: תֵּימָן
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. A region/clan of Edom, associated with proverbial wisdom (see wisdom entry).
Negeb
Approved rendering: 南地
Transliteration: Nándì
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: הַנֶּגֶב
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. The southern region of Judah that will possess Mount Esau (1:19).
Shephelah
Approved rendering: 高原
Transliteration: Gāoyuán
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: הַשְּׁפֵלָה
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. The lowland region that will possess Philistine territory (1:19).
Philistines
Approved rendering: 非利士人
Transliteration: Fēilìshìrén
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: פְּלִשְׁתִּים
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Neighboring people whose territory is possessed in the restoration of 1:19.
Ephraim
Approved rendering: 以法莲
Transliteration: Yǐfǎlián
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: אֶפְרַיִם
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Northern tribal territory possessed in the restoration of 1:19.
Samaria
Approved rendering: 撒玛利亚
Transliteration: Sāmǎlìyà
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: שֹׁמְרוֹן
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Northern territory possessed in the restoration of 1:19.
Benjamin
Approved rendering: 便雅悯
Transliteration: Biànyǎmǐn
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: בִּנְיָמִן
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Tribe that will possess Gilead in the restoration of 1:19.
Gilead
Approved rendering: 基列
Transliteration: Jīliè
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: הַגִּלְעָד
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Territory east of the Jordan possessed by Benjamin in the restoration of 1:19.
Canaan
Approved rendering: 迦南人
Transliteration: Jiānánrén
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: כְּנַעֲנִים
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Territory possessed by exiled Israelites in Obadiah 1:20.
Zarephath
Approved rendering: 撒勒法
Transliteration: Sālèfǎ
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: צַרְפַת
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. Phoenician town marking the extent of restored territory in Obadiah 1:20.
Sepharad
Approved rendering: 西法拉德
Transliteration: Xīfǎlādé
Doctrine: Proper Names
Original: סְפָרַד
Category: Proper Names
NEW TERM (Obadiah). Standard CUV transliteration. A place of exile named in Obadiah 1:20, of uncertain precise identification.
Referenced passages