enemy / foe

The Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ge’ez, and Latin that is translated as “enemy” or “foe” in English is translated in the Hausa Common Language Bible as “friends of front,” i.e., the person standing opposite you in a battle. (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)

In North Alaskan Inupiatun it is translated with a term that implies that it’s not just someone who hates you, but one who wants to do you harm (Source: Robert Bascom), in Tarok as ukpa ìkum or “companion in war/fighting,” and in Ikwere as nye irno m or “person who hates me” (source for this and one above: Chuck and Karen Tessaro in this newsletter ).

In Cherokee it is either translated as “the one(s) who reprimand(s) you” or “the one(s) feared.” (Source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 47)

complete verse (Deuteronomy 28:57)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Deuteronomy 28:57:

  • Kupsabiny: “Then that woman shall hide herself from her husband and her children so that she can eat on her own the afterbirth and a newborn child whom she has born.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “that without sharing with her husband or the other children the baby to which she had just given birth, she will eat it secretly together with its afterbirth.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “She will-hide her child who just recently born and its placenta so-that she will-eat (them) in secret, for she is afraid that she might have nothing to eat while your (plur.) enemies are-besieging your (plur.) towns.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Even the most gentle and sensitive/kind women among you, who are very refined/rich with the result that they have never had to walk anywhere , will do the same thing. When your enemies have surrounded your towns, those women will be extremely hungry, with the result that after they give birth to a baby, they will secretly kill it and eat its flesh and also eat its afterbirth. And they will not share any of it with their husbands whom they love very much or with any of their other children.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Deuteronomy 28:56 - 28:57

Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version have combined verses 56 and 57 to make a clearer and less repetitive translation.

The most tender and delicately bred woman: exactly the same language used of the man in verse 54. In some cultures the same terms cannot be applied to both men and women.

Would not venture to set the sole of her foot upon the ground: this seems to mean that she is so delicately bred and has lived in such luxury that she never would walk barefoot on the ground; some, however (see Good News Translation), take it to mean that she is so wealthy that she has never had to walk anywhere, but was transported either in a litter or in a carriage. It seems better to take it in the first sense. In any case this is an obvious exaggeration; it seems very unlikely that an adult woman could live all her life, especially raising children, without once setting her foot on the ground.

Will grudge: as in verse 56. Good News Translation has “will behave in the same way,” meaning she will refuse to share the flesh of the child with others.

The husband of her bosom: like the wife of his bosom in verse 54.

To her son and to her daughter: that is, “to her children.”

Her afterbirth … and her children whom she bears: afterbirth is the soft tissue that surrounds the baby before birth and comes out from the womb after childbirth. It is hardly possible that the writer was thinking of a siege that would last long enough for a woman to give birth several times. It is better to follow Good News Translation, “the child” (see BÍBLIA para todos Edição Comum “the son”; similarly New Jerusalem Bible, Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje). Bible en français courant cites the Septuagint for the singular. Revised English Bible “or any boy or girl that she may bear,” and Contemporary English Version “eat both her new-born baby and the afterbirth” are commendable ways of handling the matter.

For want of all things: because she has no food left and has become desperate with hunger.

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 .