drop out

In Gbaya, the notion of dropping arrows in Ezekiel 39:3 is emphasized with the ideophone pamyala, which expresses dispersion one by one, like a group that scatters.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

See also flashed on every side.

complete verse (Ezekiel 39:3)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 39:3:

  • Kupsabiny: “I will hit that bow of yours that is in your left hand and cause the arrows in the right hand to fall down.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Then I will-take-away your weapon,” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “When you are there, I will snatch your bows from your left hands and cause your arrows to fall from your right hands.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

2nd person pronoun with low register (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 second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used anata (あなた) is typically used when the speaker is humbly addressing another person.

In these verses, however, omae (おまえ) is used, a cruder second person pronoun, that Jesus for instance chooses when chiding his disciples. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also first person pronoun with low register and third person pronoun with low register.

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 39:3

Then I will strike your bow from your left hand, and will make your arrows drop out of your right hand: When Gog and his army reach the land of Israel, God will disarm them and make them unable to fight. The connector Then may be rendered “When you reach Israel.” This verse pictures Gog as a right-handed man who holds a bow in his left hand and takes arrows out of their holder with his right hand. There is no significance in Gog being a right-handed man, so since left-handed people can also use bows and arrows, it is not necessary to be so precise in translation. Most translators find that they can follow the text of this verse fairly closely. A model that does this is “Then I will knock the bow out of your left hand and make you drop the arrows you are carrying in your right hand.” New Living Translation (1996) says “I will knock your weapons from your hands and leave you helpless.” This is a good model for translators who want to render the sense clearly or in places where a bow and arrows are not known. A bow with arrows is almost a universally known weapon, either for hunting or for fighting. A bow is a curved, flexible piece of wood with one piece of string tied to each end. When someone pulls the string, the wood bends so that, when the person lets go of the string, it shoots an arrow out at great speed toward a target. Arrows are short, sharp sticks that are shot out from a bow to hit an animal if someone is hunting for food, or to hit and kill an enemy in war.

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 .