offering (qorban)

The Hebrew qorbān (קָרְבָּ) originally means “that which is brought near.” Most English Bibles translate it as “offering.” The Hebraic English translation of Everett Fox uses near-offering and likewise the German translation by Buber-Rosenzweig has (the neologisms) Darnahung or Hinleitnahung.

See also burnt-offering and offering.

complete verse (Ezekiel 20:28)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 20:28:

  • Kupsabiny: “When I brought them to the land that I had promised them, and they saw hills and green trees, they made sacrifices there. Those sacrifices and the wine they offered made me angry.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “For when I brought them to the land which I promised to give them, they offered offerings, incense, and drinks in the high places and in the thick trees which they could-see. Therefore I was very angry with them.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “After I brought them into the land that I had solemnly promised to give to them, every time that they saw a high hill or a big green tree, they offered sacrificesto idols there. They made offerings to them, and that caused me to become angry. They presented to those idols their fragrant burning incense, and poured out wine offerings to 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 20:28

For renders the Hebrew waw conjunction. Here it introduces how the Israelites insulted God in Canaan by their unfaithfulness.

When I had brought them into the land which I swore to give them: See Ezek 20.6.

Then wherever they saw any high hill or any leafy tree …: A high hill or a leafy tree easily became a center of idol worship for the Israelites in Canaan (compare 6.13). The rest of the verse describes four acts of pagan worship that the people did in the shrines on the hills or under the sacred trees. God stresses that the people worshiped at these pagan shrines by beginning each act with an emphatic there, although Revised Standard Version retains only three of them as follows:

(1) There they offered their sacrifices means they killed animals and burned them as food for the false gods.
(2) And [there they] presented the provocation of their offering means they brought gifts or offerings to the idols, which made God angry. The Hebrew noun for provocation refers to an action that causes someone to become angry (see 8.17, where the verb from the same root is rendered “provoke … to anger”). This clause may be rendered “and there they provoked my anger [or, they made me angry] by giving offerings to the false gods.”
(3) There they sent up their soothing odors means they burned sacrifices and sweet-smelling incense so that the smoke rose up into the sky and the false gods smelled it and were pleased (see the comments on 6.13 and 16.19). Translators may say “there they burned sacrifices to please the false gods.”
(4) And there they poured out their drink offerings means they brought liquids that could be drunk and gave them to the false gods, probably by pouring them out on altars. Usually the drink offerings were wine (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version). Often the worshipers drank them as well, as a way of sharing them with the gods. These drink offerings are also called “libations” (Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). This clause may be rendered “and there they poured drinks on altars for the gods.”

It may help readers if translators break this verse into several sentences. One model that does this is:

• For when I led them into the land that I had promised to give them, they began to worship false gods wherever they saw a high hill or a leafy tree. In those places they killed animals and burned them as a sacrifice for the gods. In those places they made me angry by giving offerings to the gods. In those places they burned sacrifices to please the gods. In those places they poured drinks on altars for the gods.

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 .