An idiom is a figure of speech made up of a group of words that, as a whole, has a meaning that is different from what one would understand from the meanings of the individual words. Someone from outside of the culture usually cannot understand an idiom without someone inside the culture explaining its true meaning. Every language uses idioms. Some English examples are:
An idiom is a phrase that has a special meaning to the people of the language or culture who use it. Its meaning is different than what a person would understand from the meanings of the individual words that form the phrase.
**Purpose**: An idiom is probably created in a culture somewhat by accident when someone describes something in an unusual way. But, when that unusual way communicates the message powerfully and people understand it clearly, other people start to use it. After a while, it becomes a normal way of talking in that language.
* People can easily misunderstand idioms in the original languages of the Bible if they do not know the cultures that produced the Bible.
* People can easily misunderstand idioms that are in the source language Bibles if they do not know the cultures that made those translations.
* It is useless to translate idioms literally (according to the meaning of each word) when the target language audience will not understand what they mean.
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