prostitute oneself / play the prostitute

The Hebrew that is translated as “prostitute oneself” or “play the prostitute” in English is translated in Vidunda as “(practice) sexual immorality.” (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

complete verse (Ezekiel 16:17)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 16:17:

  • Kupsabiny: “You took the arm rings that were made from gold and silver that I gave you and molded/shaped them to become an idol so that you could worship (them).” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “You also used the gold and silver jewelries which I gave you to make male little-gods/false-gods and you worshipped them. (It is) just the same that you committed-adultery-with-a-man!” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “You took the fine gold and silver jewelry that I gave you, and you made male idols for yourself, in order to have sex with them.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

1st person pronoun referring to God (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 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.

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

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 16:17

You also took your fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you: This clause refers to the gold and silver ornaments that God had given to the girl. See verses 11-13.

And made for yourself images of men: She melted down the ornaments and made images of men (“male images” in Good News Translation). Most translations understand these images of men to be “statues of men” (New Living Translation), but it is just as likely that they were statues of large, erect penises (so New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh with “phallic images”).

And with them played the harlot means she acted like a prostitute with these statutes, that is, she worshiped them. Played the harlot renders the same Hebrew verb as in verses 16 and 17, so there is no reason to change it to a word for “adultery,” as Good News Translation and New Living Translation have done. Nor should the force of the message be softened by using the verb “sinned,” as Contemporary English Version has done. However, it is clear that the sex referred to here is not physical sex with male statues or huge metal penises. In this verse sex is a metaphor for the way the people turned from God and worshiped idols. In translation, however, the sexual terminology should be kept if possible. A model that retains the imagery of this verse without relating it to idolatry explicitly is:

• You took the beautiful gold and silver jewelry I had given you and made it into idols for yourself in the shape of men [or, the shape of a penis], and you acted like a prostitute with them.

However, it is also possible to show that the sex is a metaphor for turning away from God through idol worship as follows:

• You made idols of men from the beautiful gold and silver jewelry I had given you, and you acted like a prostitute by worshiping them.

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 .