15It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms and never again exalt itself above the nations, and I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations.
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 29:15:
Kupsabiny: “It shall be at the very bottom among all countries and never recover. I shall make them suffer so that they will never rule other countries.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “the-lowliest of all the kingdoms. And they will- never again -be-above the other nations. I will-make them a very weak kingdom so-that they no-longer can-reign- again -over the other nations.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “It will be the least important of all the nations; it will never again be greater than the nearby countries. I will cause Egypt to be very weak, with the result that it will never again rule over other nations.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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.
It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms means Egypt will be “the weakest kingdom of all” (Good News Translation; similarly New Century Version). For lowly see the previous verse.
And never again exalt itself above the nations means Egypt will not become powerful again. This clause may be rendered “and it will never again consider itself more powerful [or, important] than the other nations” or “and it will never again rule other nations” (New Century Version; similarly Good News Translation).
And I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations: God will make sure that Egypt will never become powerful again by making the Egyptians so weak politically that they will never control other nations again. In this context the Hebrew word for small does not mean physically little, but “[politically] weak” (New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, New Century Version) or “unimportant” (Good News Translation). But the fact that the Hebrew, followed by Revised Standard Version, changes from the singular pronouns It/itself (that is, Egypt) to the plural pronouns them/they (that is, the Egyptians) in this verse suggests that a better rendering for small may be “few [in number]” (Revised English Bible, New American Bible). Either interpretation is acceptable. One model for this sentence is “I will make them so unimportant that they will never again rule over other nations.”
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 .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.