The Meaning of the Word “Wai”!

A church member sent a letter to the LAI, enquiring about the meaning of a word in the Bible. The question was as follows: what is the meaning of the word ‘wai’ in Ecclesiastes 4:10? Here is a quotation from that Bible passage, taken from the New Translation version of the Bible: 

For if they fall, one will lift up his companion; but wai to the one who falls and has no one to lift him up!

The Bible I use is the 1999 edition. I have looked up the word in various dictionaries, but have not yet found it. I am afraid that the Bible I own might be a forgery, not a publication by the Indonesian Bible Society (LAI), or that it contains a printing error.  

Answer:

In the second edition of the Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language), published by Balai Pustaka in 1994, the entry for “wai” is defined as follows: “An interjection used to express surprise and the like.”&” It is true that this word is not widely used nowadays as it is an old Indonesian (Malay) term. However, when the first edition of the New Translation of the Bible (TB) was published in 1974, the word “wai” was apparently still familiar to many people. That is why it is still used in the Bible text. 

In the New Translation Bible, 2nd Edition (TB-2), launched by the LAI and churches in Indonesia on 9 February 2023, the LAI translation team has updated the translation so that today’s generation can more easily understand the meaning of the text. Thus, Ecclesiastes 4:10 in the TB-2 Bible reads:

For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to the one who falls and has no one to lift them up!

Regarding the authenticity of LAI publications, in every edition LAI always includes the LAI logo on the front cover of its Bibles. This logo consists of the words ‘Lembaga Alkitab Indonesia’ within a circle. Inside the circle is an image of an open Bible. If this logo is not included on the front cover of a Bible, it means that the Bible is not published by LAI. As the enquirer mentioned, we need to pay attention to this logo because there are currently several versions of the Bible circulating in bookshops (online as well as in-store) and amongst the Christian community that do not bear the LAI logo. 

Quoted from: 

Different Bible Texts; Why?. Indonesian Bible Society. 2006.