Anchor

The anchor was a heavy object attached to a boat by a rope or chain and dropped to the bottom of the water in order to prevent or restrict the movement of the boat. Ancient anchors were often made of stone, sometimes of metal.

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For languages spoken by people far removed from a coast, an expression for “anchor” may be extremely difficult to find or even to develop. In some languages “anchor” is rendered as “heavy weights on ropes to keep a boat from moving” or even “heavy object that holds the boat in one place.” However, if the people in question have no experience with anchors, it may be important to have a marginal note to indicate specifically what an anchor is, and then to employ some abbreviated form of that description to render the object in the text.

For the metaphorical use of “anchor” in HEB 6:19, see the extensive comments in A Handbook on The Letter to the Hebrews (pages 130–131).