What Does The Mandalorian Stone Tablet Say in the Season 3 Premiere?

The following article contains spoilers for "The Mandalorian" season 3, episode 1.

[UPDATE: The bible passage in question has been updated to reflect a more accurate translation.]

After a wait of over two years, "The Mandalorian" is back with a third season. (Well, two years, if you count from the end of the last season. Less so if you count from the "Mandalorian" episodes of "The Book of Boba Fett," which was essentially season 2.5.) As the episode opens, a group of Mandalorians — including the Armorer (Emily Swallow) — are fighting off a giant beast, only to be rescued by Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), who flies in with his little buddy Grogu.

Din is there to see the Armorer. As you recall from previous episodes, Din has removed his helmet, and, friends, this is not the way if you're part of the group of Mandalorians he belongs to. Din knows the only way to redeem himself and lose his apostate status is to bathe in the Living Waters beneath the Mines of Mandalore. The Grutchin in the ointment, however, is that Mandalore was destroyed during the Night of a Thousand Tears.

The Armorer is doubtful he can get there, but Din has a rock in his pocket that might change her mind. It's a bit of green crystal that has carvings on it that he got from some Jawas. He says it's through trade with a traveler who has visited the planet's surface, proving he can land and that the air might not be poisoned.

That crystal's carvings in the rock surrounding it are, according to Redditor u/GeneralAnubis (via Yahoo!), written in Mando'a text. They figured out a lot of it ... and it appears to be from the King James Bible.

u/GeneralAnubis posted the translation and "Star Wars" fans should give this person props. I've translated carvings in Aurebesh before, but Mando'a is one I've never tried. Even with an alphabet available on a site online, you'd have to know the symbols. The Redditor even figured out where the bit was from without the entire text translation. It is apparently part of Exodus 10:5-6. The parts that were translatable were bolded. Here is what it says:

"And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth: and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field:

And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians; which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers' fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh."

This is part of the Bible text that discusses a plague of locusts in Egypt, coming down to eat everything and lay the earth bare. There have been many themes in the Star Wars universe that cross over with religion, from the teachings of the Jedi and Sith being called an "ancient religion" in "A New Hope" to the Mandalorian cult that Din belongs to. However, it has always seemed to me that the teachings of the Jedi were closer to some Eastern religions. Christianity doesn't often stick out to me (or the author of the Yahoo! article) as one that Star Wars leans on. Your mileage may vary on that.

The aftermath of a plague of locusts destroying everything in its path does seem to echo what the Armorer believes to be the complete desolation of Mandalore. In the comments of the Reddit post, user SaxOps1 said, "Hah that's kinda neat, ties into the theme of Mandalore being destroyed in a plague and potentially being poisoned. I wonder if there could be any hints towards how the Jewish people were rescued out of Egypt — Mando rescuing the people maybe?"

It's another interesting idea, and we'll see how that turns out as the season progresses. Yet another Redditor, RedFishStew, pointed out that the crystal has another parallel in the Bible, in the story of Noah's ark, where a bird brings back an olive branch, symbolizing that the earth is fit to inhabit after the giant flood has receded.

Finally, I did want to mention that Mando'a isn't listed on StarWars.com (though it does have a Wookiepedia entry). In fact, u/GeneralAnubis commented on their own post about that, saying, "The tablet is literally written in old King James English, 1:1 transcribed using Mando'a font. The Mandalorian language is something known to fans and translatable (I would know, I've studied it for 7 years), but Disney refuses to acknowledge its existence."

It will be fun to see if this is an actual acknowledgment or if we'll see any more of Mando'a in future episodes set on the planet itself.

New episodes of "The Mandalorian" release each Wednesday on Disney+.