Receiver: Augustus KOUSSINGUISSA Language: Beembe
Year reception: unknown
Actor: unknown
1) Mbau Sodomo mu-na Ngundu Ngundu [1]
The fire struck Sodom as Flash (like the rain?)
Bu bakonini kuyuila my Leele Loti
Because they do not listen to what was said Lot
bakotiri Bu mu mia nson, Nzambi wa baka mankesi,
and have done shameful things, God was angry
Mbau sunduka ago, there leem mu Sodomo
The fire came down from sky, engulfed Sodom
Ba mu Nieng Mbau
They were consumed by fire!
Mvutu / Chorus:
Mbau Ngundu-Ngundu na, na-Ngundu Ngundu
Fire ton, ton
Mbau Ngundu na-mu Ngundu Sodomo
fire ton in Sodom
Mbau na-Ngundu Ngundu, na-Ngundu Ngundu
Fire ton, ton
Mbau na-Ngundu Ngundu, baatu Nieng ba!
Fire ton, and people are consumed!
2) Nzambi heke wa ba tata crankcrase kuri Loti
God sent angels to Lot's Dad:
"Tata Loti na na Mukasi Baala baku, yisikee Sodomo mu!
"Dad, Lot left Sodom with your wife and kids!
Nzambi wa baka mankesi his ka na bunga Sodomo Ngomolo,
God is angry, he will destroy Sodom and Gomorrah,
Bu bakonini ku Yuil yave mia,
Because they do not Yahweh listened,
His ba mu Nieng Mbau! "
They are consumed by fire! "
3) Mu kiminu tata na Loti Baala boolo ba ba pala mu bakietu Sodomo
By faith, dad Lot and his two daughters out of Sodom.
Mukasi Loti bu ka tata Konini kiminu,
Like Lot's wife dad lacked faith
Telemes Wa, wa wa tata ku sieteke Mambisa, wa kituka Kimama.
She stopped, turned, looked back and was turned into a statue.
Biobinso mu Sodomo biafukila, biafukila, bia Nieng Mbau mu!
All things have been destroyed in Sodom, destroyed by fire!
4) Beenu se mu kiseendu Moono kia ki
You also people of this new generation
Seen kiminu mpisi read vuuka, bwa vuuka Loti
Have faith, to be saved, as was Lot
Kasi Balaka its bakituka Mukasi Loti
However, many suffer the fate of Lot's wife,
Mbuti read kuulukiri bimvwama mu ko ha bia nsi
If you do not release the wealth of this world
Ngundu Ngundu-yi bu mu Bwire kilumbu kia mutsundu,
When the fire that thunders befall the Day of Judgement,
Its lwa Nieng Mbau mu!
You will be consumed by fire!
Comment:
The song sends a chilling warning to all those who do not behave according to the will of God. It is obviously the only two possibilities for human beings: to live by faith and be saved, or disobey God and perish by the fire of his trial.
The interpretive line of the biblical story of Genesis 19, 1-29 is located in what is called the theology of retribution: God save the righteous and punishes the sinners. However, even in Africa where this theology is vastly accepted, this song goes wrong, because of its direct and shocking to berate sinners. You listen willingly as animated singing because the melody is very rhythmic, but does not dwell on the frightening nature of its content ...
Note that Lot's wife is immediately presented as a woman without faith, yet the biblical text says nothing of the sort. It simply tells how, looking back, she disobeys the order of the angel in charge of destroying Sodom ( "Save yourself for your life, do not look behind you ... lest thou be consumed." Genesis 19, 17). In our song, disobedience of Lot's wife is interpreted as a lack of faith that she pay her life.
narrative style of the third stanza we can imagine the mad rush of Lot and his family through the plain of Jordan, to escape the disaster. Then comes the moment when, for Lot's wife, his flight into the unknown becomes problematic: in Sodom, she built her life, it is richly drawn and her two daughters were married there with residents of country (Genesis 19, 14). How to go leaving behind everything they owned? For Lot's wife, running for his life is no longer possible. She stops, says the song, she turns one moment to the life she has left, and that's the end: she is frozen forever, for disobeying the instruction of the angel salutary.
But pay attention to this terrifying hail of fire that thunders like lightning. For a receiver did not have access to the Bible in his mother tongue (Beembe), the expression Mbau na-Ngundu Ngundu, in view of Genesis is full of accuracy, because it captures the idea the biblical narrator tells how God rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19, 24).
also Beembe language (a language of the Kongo area) Ngundu means action of clearing often performed by means of fire and intended to make a cultivable land. It uproots weeds ( soolo mangundu ku, removing plugs), they are burnt and the ash obtained is used to fertilize soil (is the practice of burning of the Pyrenees which derive their name from Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily [2]). The terrifying Ngundu-Ngundu announcing the Judgement Day can be heard in any other way, because it evokes a divine action aiming to burn the evil at the root to make the human fertility, its ability to produce good fruit, good deeds that please the Creator.
However, this assumption does not detract from reading the severity of the penalty inflicted on the inhabitants of Sodom, only Lot and his family were spared. Loth, spokesman despised by God in the midst of a society overrun by evil, abandoned all his wealth and leave Sodom without looking back, becoming a model of faith and obedience to God. As for his wife, she takes the figure of a man of his slave property and prone to disobedience, because of the attractiveness of the world he can not resist. The warning
given by the solemn song is for all generations, everyone, for everyone, instead of provoking the wrath of God through actions shameful day to do what is good in everyone's interest.
[1] Ngundu-Ngundu: onomatopoeia, probably from the verb ngunduka (thunder, lightning do, like a gun) or the word-my-Ngundu Ngundu (drizzle drops in the forest after the rain) .
[2] "In the past they were largely covered with dense woods and thick, but they were said to be burned by some shepherds who had fired. The fire lasted continuously for many days, the area of land was burned, and that's where we gave the name of these mountains Pyrenees. The burning of soil melted mass of silver ore and produced numerous streams of pure silver. "Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, Book V, ch. XXXV, p. 36, trans. Ferdinand Hoefer (1851).
