The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that is translated in English as “painful” or “sorrow” is translated in Huba as “cut the insides.” David Frank explains: “Huba has just one expression that covers both ‘angry’ and ‘sad.’ They don’t make a distinction in their language. I suppose you could say that the term they use means more generically, ‘strong emotional reaction’ (source: David Frank in this blog post ). Similarly, in Bariai it is “the interior is severed/cut” (source: Bariai Back Translation).
In Noongar it is translated as koort-warra or “heart bad.” (Source: Bardip Ruth-Ang 2020)
In Enlhet it is translated as “going aside of the innermost.” “Innermost” or valhoc is a term that is frequently used in Enlhet to describe a large variety of emotions or states of mind (for other examples see here). (Source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 24ff. )
The Hebrew, Greek, and Latin that is translated as “cup” in English is translated in Sar with “calabash” (see here ) (source: Ngarbolnan Riminan in Le Sycomore 2000, p. 20ff. ) and in Bariai with “coconut shell” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
The Hebrew and Greek that is transliterated as “Samaria” in English means “a watch mountain,” “a place of watching,” “guardianship.” (Source: Cornwall / Smith 1997 )
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 23:33:
Kupsabiny: “(It) will make you drunk and cause you pain. This cup brings you destruction and desolation and (it is) the pain/punishment of your sister Samaria.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “You will-be-drunk and feel-sad, for this cup is-filled with destruction. This is the cup of suffering which have-drunk from your sibling Samaria.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “When you become very drunk, you will become very sad, becausedrinking what is in that cup will cause you to become ruined and deserted, like what happened to the people of Samaria, who are like your sister.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow means Oholibah will drink so much of the contents of the cup that she will become very drunk and she will become very sad. Good News Translation says “It will make you miserable and drunk.”
A cup of horror and desolation, is the cup of your sister Samaria: God’s judgment will destroy Oholibah (that is, Jerusalem) completely just as he had destroyed Samaria. The Hebrew words for horror and desolation (see 6.14) have almost the same meaning, so they may be combined by saying “horrible devastation.” Another possible rendering is “complete and terrible destruction and ruin.” Even though this is a poetic passage, translators may need to change the order of these two lines, as in “That cup of your sister Samaria is a cup of horrible devastation [or, destruction].”
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 .
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