complete verse (Ezekiel 1:16)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 11:6:

  • Kupsabiny: “You have killed countless people in this city until the corpses have piled up.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “You have killed many in this city and the corpses just are-scattered in the street.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “You have killed many people in this city and filled the streets with their corpses.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)

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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).

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

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 11:6

Here God summarizes his reasons for punishing the leaders of Jerusalem. You have multiplied your slain in this city means they murdered many people; and have filled its streets with the slain means they filled the city with dead bodies. By not listening to the warnings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the leaders had prolonged the fighting, and in this way they were responsible for many deaths among their fellow Jews. This verse probably also points to many people who had died as a result of political, economic and judicial oppression, in which the leaders robbed and killed the poor and were able to get away with it. The implication is that very many people died in this way. A possible model for this verse is:

• You have murdered so many people in this city that its streets are filled with dead bodies!

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .