Honorary "rare" construct denoting God ("order/command")

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 usage of an honorific construction where the morphemes rare (られ) or are (され) are affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, meiji-rare-ru (命じられる) or “order/command” is used.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Deuteronomy 34:9

This verse is somewhat of a shift; it is not a recital of what happened next, as we might expect, but a general statement about Joshua, successor of Moses. For the commissioning of Joshua, see 31.1-8; Num 27.12-23.

Full of the spirit of wisdom: this is God-given wisdom.

Moses had laid his hands on him: see Num 27.22-23. It will be helpful to place this information at the beginning of the verse as follows: “Before Moses died, he placed his hands on Joshua and appointed him to be his successor. Yahweh filled him with wisdom [or, made him a very wise person].”

The people of Israel obeyed him: this goes quite naturally with what follows; they did as the LORD had commanded Moses and obeyed Joshua (see Good News Translation).

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 .