13I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them into their own land, and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 34:13:
Kupsabiny: “I shall gather (them) from where they were taken to and I shall return them to come to their (own) land. I shall go around feeding (them) on the hills of Israel, there on the ridges and every place where it is possible to live in the land.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “I will-take- them -away from the different nations, and will-be-brought to their own land. I will-have- them -graze on the mountains of Israel, beside the rivers, and in the lands where the people live.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “I will bring them back from many countries and gather them together again in their own land. Because my people are like sheep , it is as though I will enable them to find good pastureland on the hills of Israel, and in the ravines, and in the villages of Israel.” (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.
And I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land: Here God repeats the promise he made in 11.17 to bring back his people from exile into their own land, that is, Israel. For I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, see 20.34. Peoples may be rendered “nations” (New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, New Century Version, Revised English Bible, Moffatt). A number of translations combine peoples and countries; for example, Good News Translation renders the first two clauses of this verse as “I will take them out of foreign countries, gather them together.” For will bring them into their own land, see 20.42.
And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the fountains, and in all the inhabited places of the country: I will feed them means God will be their shepherd and look after them. The mountains of Israel are the very place where the bad shepherds had not cared for them (see Ezek 34.6). The Hebrew word for fountains is better rendered “ravines” (New International Version, New Century Version, English Standard Version, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible), which are deep valleys that rivers carve out in the hills (see the comments on 6.3, where it is translated “ravines”). Other possible renderings are “valleys” (Contemporary English Version, New International Reader’s Version, Christian Community Bible, Moffatt), “rivers” (New Living Translation, King James Version), “streams” (Good News Translation, New American Standard Bible, Revised English Bible), and “watercourses” (New Revised Standard Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). All the inhabited places of the country are “all of the places in the land where people live” (New International Reader’s Version). Good News Translation renders this phrase as “green pastures” (similarly Contemporary English Version with “fertile fields”), which interprets inhabited places as places where people can live because the land is good enough to produce food for them. A model for this whole sentence is “I will feed them on the mountains and by the rivers of Israel and in all the places where people live in the land.”
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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