Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 35:7:
Kupsabiny: “I shall make you desolate so that no person will visit you or travel through.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “I will-make desolate Mount Seir, and I will-kill all the ones-who-go-to-and-fro there.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “so I will cause Seir Mountain to be abandoned/deserted, and I will get rid of anyone who enters it or leaves it.” (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.
I will make Mount Seir a waste and a desolation: This clause is almost identical to the last clause of verse 3 (see the comments there), where God speaks of Mount Seir in the second person. Translators may retain the second person here, if that will help to avoid confusion. The Hebrew word for waste differs from the one used in verse 3, but they come from the same root.
And I will cut off from it all who come and go means God will kill everyone who travels through Edom, so the country will be totally deserted. Contemporary English Version renders this sentence as “and [I will] kill anyone who travels through it” (similarly Good News Translation), and New Century Version has “and [I will] destroy everyone who goes in or comes out of it.”
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.