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 23:34

You shall drink it and drain it out stresses that the punishment will not stop until it is completely finished. Good News Translation says “You will drink and drain it dry,” and Contemporary English Version has “But you must drink every drop!”

And pluck out your hair, and tear your breasts: The Hebrew text reads “and you will break it into pieces and you will tear your breasts.” When Oholibah has finished drinking the contents of the cup, she will smash the earthenware cup in despair on the ground so that it shatters into many pieces. Contemporary English Version says “Then smash the cup to pieces.” These pieces will be jagged and sharp and she will use some of them to tear her breasts. Some translations understand tear your breasts to mean she will “cut” (Contemporary English Version), “lacerate” (Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible), or “scratch” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) her breasts. But the meaning is much stronger than that—in her misery and despair, Oholibah will actually try to “tear out” (New Revised Standard Version) or “cut off” her own breasts (compare 17.9, where the Hebrew word for tear is used for pulling up the vine by its roots). She will do this because her breasts had been the focus of her sexuality when she was surrounded by her lovers; now they seem to be the cause of her punishment. A good translation for these two lines is “and you will smash the cup to pieces and cut off your own breasts.”

Not all translations follow the reading of smashing the cup. Pluck out your hair, which is a gesture of grief and mourning, changes the Hebrew and follows the ancient Syriac translation. Others understand the Hebrew to read “gnaw its fragments” (New American Standard Bible; similarly New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Hebrew Old Testament Text Project), which means Oholibah will suck or chew on every surface of the cup to get every last drop of the intoxicating liquid. But this takes a very obscure meaning of the Hebrew verb here and does not fit the context well. Good News Translation omits the actual step of breaking the cup by saying simply “with its broken pieces” (similarly Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), but it clearly understands that the cup will be smashed. We recommend the reading of smashing the cup.

Once translators make it clear that the cup is a picture of God’s anger and judgment, many languages will be able to retain the metaphorical language of the original text. But for those languages where that is not possible, it is acceptable to drop the metaphor of the cup. A model for the poetic lines of verses 32-34 that does this is:

• 32 … I will punish you as I punished your sister. Your punishment will be great and severe. Others will laugh at you and make fun of you. 33 You will be very sad and you will stagger about like a person who is drunk. Your punishment will cause terrible destruction and ruin as it did for your sister Samaria. 34 I will continue to punish you until the punishment is totally complete. You will suffer so much that you will try to cut off your own breasts [because they were the cause of you sinning].

The importance of this statement of judgment is emphasized by the use of two concluding formulas. For I have spoken is an emphatic reminder that these are God’s words. The solemn declaration says the Lord GOD closes this part of the prophecy and emphasizes that it is true (see 5.11). For the Lord GOD, see verse 22. Translators may render these two formulas as “This is what I, the Lord Yahweh, declare.”

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 .