Ixcatlán Mazatec: “with your best/biggest thinking” (source: Robert Bascom)
Noongar: dwangka-boola, lit. “ear much” (source: Portions of the Holy Bible in the Nyunga language of Australia, 2018 — see also remember)
Kwere “to know how to live well” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Dobel: “their ear holes are long-lasting” (in Acts 6:3) (source: Jock Hughes)
Gbaya: iŋa-mgbara-mɔ or “knowing-about-things” (note that in comparison to that, “knowledge” is translated as iŋa-mɔ or “knowing things”) (source: Philip Noss in The Bible Translator 2001, p. 114ff. )
Chichewa: nzeru, meaning both “knowledge” and “wisdom” (source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
In Hungarian Sign Language it is translated with a hand gesture referring to God to indicate a human quality to communicate that wisdom does not originate from man but is linked to and connected with the fear of God (source: Jenjelvi Biblia and Andrea Bokros):
The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).
Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).
In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 28:7:
Kupsabiny: “I am going to send very fierce enemies towards you. Those people shall destroy every beautiful thing you got from your knowledge.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “I will-have- you -attacked by the ones-from-other-place, who are most-violent of all the nations. They will-destroy your beautiful properties which you possessed through your wisdom. And your honor will-vanish.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “I will now bring a foreign army to attack your country, an army that causes other nations to be terrified. They will pull out their swords to strike you, you who think that you have marvelous/great wisdom, and they will destroy all your beautiful things.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
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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.
Therefore, behold …: The details of God’s punishment of the king of Tyre begin here. The connector therefore ties this verse closely with the previous one. Behold renders the emphatic Hebrew particle hinneh. Here it stresses what follows and makes it more vivid. Most English translations omit it as unnatural (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version), but translators should retain it if their language commonly uses such particles. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh renders it “I swear.” Another possible model is “Listen to this!”
I will bring strangers upon you means God will bring foreigners to attack Tyre. In many languages the verb bring is better rendered “send.” Strangers are people from another country, that is, “foreigners” (New International Version, Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, Moffatt).
God describes these foreigners as the most terrible of the nations. The Hebrew word for most terrible refers to someone who has great power and shows no pity at all for others (compare New International Reader’s Version, which renders this line as “They will not show you any pity at all”). As a result, others are terrified of him. Here most terrible may be rendered “cruelest” (New Century Version) or “most ruthless” (New International Version, Revised English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Moffatt). Some translators find it more natural to express this line as a separate sentence, for example, “These foreigners will be the most cruel of all the nations.” God does not say who they are, but he has in mind Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians who began a long siege of Tyre in 586 B.C.
And they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom: The Hebrew phrase rendered draw their swords usually refers to fighting and killing people (see 5.2, where it is translated “unsheathe the sword”), but here they fight against the beauty of your wisdom (compare New Living Translation “your marvelous wisdom”). This phrase is metaphorical and refers to “the magnificence of Tyre with its beautiful buildings and other treasures, made possible through the prince’s shrewd commercial enterprises” (Block). New Century Version renders this line very well, saying “They will pull out their swords and destroy all that your wisdom has built.”
And defile your splendor repeats the ideas of the previous line, that is, the foreigners will destroy the beautiful city of Tyre. The Hebrew word for defile (chalal) has two possible meanings in this context. One possible sense is “make unclean/unholy.” Most translations follow this interpretation by saying “defile” (Revised Standard Version/New Revised Standard Version, New Living Translation, King James Version / New King James Version, New American Standard Bible, Revised English Bible, Jerusalem Bible), “desecrate” (New Jerusalem Bible), “stain” (Moffatt), or “dishonor” (New Century Version). One way to render the line with this sense is “They will make your beautiful [or, splendid] things unfit for worship [or, unfit for the gods].” The second possible meaning is to “pierce” (New International Version), that is, stab with a sword. New International Reader’s Version and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh follow this sense with “strike down,” and so does New American Bible with “run them [the swords] through.” A model of the line that follows this meaning is “They will strike down the beautiful things you have built.” Both interpretations are acceptable. The Hebrew word for splendor has the idea of “brightness” (King James Version) or “radiance,” and here it refers to the beauty of the impressive city of Tyre.
The last two lines of this verse may be rendered as follows:
• and they will destroy all the beautiful things that you have collected through your skill. They will destroy [or, bring disgrace upon] Tyre, that most beautiful city.
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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