5not to engage in battle with them, for I will not give you even so much as a foot’s length of their land, since I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Deuteronomy 2:5:
Kupsabiny: “do not fight them because I am not going to give you any of the highland in their country. I will not give you even something small for you to step on with the leg/foot, because I gave the hills of Seir to the grandchildren of Esau to be theirs.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “You are not to incite them to fight for I will not even give you as much space in their land as to put a footstep. I have given the mountain country of Seir into the possession of Esau’s descendants.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “You (plur.) do- not -persecute them, for I am-giving to them the hills of Seir as their land, and I will- not -give you (plur.) their land even just a little (portion).” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “but do not start to fight against them, because I am not going to give you even a tiny bit of their land. I have given that land to the descendants of Esau.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
Do not contend with them: the Hebrew verb is different from the one used in 1.30, but in this context it has essentially the same meaning: wage war against, fight, attack.
For I will not …: the reason the Israelites are not to fight the Edomites—even though the Edomites are afraid of them—is that Yahweh will not allow the Israelites to win.
The exaggerated figure not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on is better rendered in English by “not … so much as a square foot” (Good News Translation) or, even more idiomatically, “not even an inch [of their land].” New International Version has “not even enough to put your foot on.”
I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession: another way to express this is “I have given the region [or, territory] of Edom to the descendants of Esau as their own land.” Mount Seir is the hill-country region of Seir, better known as Edom. So it may be better here to say “Edom.” (See Gen 36.6-8 for an account of Esau’s separating from Jacob to settle in Edom.) To use simply the proper name Esau here (New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, New Jerusalem Bible) is to raise unnecessary difficulties for the reader. The active I have given must not be disregarded, as done by Biblia Dios Habla Hoy.
It should be noted that the same language is used of Edom being the God-given heritage of the Edomites as is used of Canaan being the heritage of the Israelites.
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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