12Therefore, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, so that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezra 9:12:
Kupsabiny: “Therefore, do not allow their sons to marry your girls or your sons to marry their girls. Do not ever make friendship with them so that you get strength and you eat the good things of this land and leave your children to inherit it forever.’” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “So do not permit your daughters to marry their sons and [do not permit] your sons to marry their daughters. You should never even allow any relationship with them, if you obey this command, you will be strong, and you will eat the good food of this land. and this land will always be in the possession of your descendants.’” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “The prophets also said to us (excl.) that we (excl.) should- never -take-a-wife or take-a-husband from them, and we (excl.) should- never -help them that they will-prosper, so-that we (excl.) will-become strong/firm and prosperous, and so-that this prosperity will-remain to our (excl.) descendants forever/[lit. until whenever].” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “They said, ‘Do not allow your daughters to marry their sons! Do not allow your sons to marry their daughters! Do not even try to cause things to go well for those people-groups! If you obey these instructions, your nation will be strong, and you will enjoy the good crops that grow on the land, and the land will belong to your descendants forever.’” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight
Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.
Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”
In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.
Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)
In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”
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 formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
The central prohibition against intermarriage in the Law of Moses is from Deut 7.3. Intermarriage with peoples of the lands was interpreted by Ezra as the cause for the pollution of the land and for the rejection of the worship of the people by God.
Therefore is a translation of the Hebrew connective conjunction and the adverb “now” (see verses 8 and 10 above). Here it is a discourse marker that indicates the next development in the statement, which will be the prohibition against intermarriage. It is very emphatic. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible translates literally with “And now,” while Revised English Bible says “Now therefore.”
Give not your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons: This is a parallelism that forbids both the marriage of Israelite women into a foreign society and the bringing of foreign women into Israel in marriage. Even though the Revised Standard Version rendering is unnatural English, the expressions “giving your daughters” and “taking their daughters” reflect the patriarchal view of society that was prevalent in Israel at the time. This is lost in the Good News Translation restructuring of this prohibition with the English verb “to intermarry.” It is preferable to retain the reflection of Jewish marriage practice in the translation, if the vocabulary of the receptor language allows it. Compare verse 2 above.
And never seek their peace or prosperity: They were not only forbidden to intermarry with them but they were also not to seek their peace (shalom in Hebrew) or prosperity (literally “good”). Although the general meaning of this expression is apparent, there are several possible interpretations. This negative command may mean that the Israelites were not to seek to enjoy the peace and good life enjoyed by the other peoples (so Bible en français courant, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Osty-Trinquet), or that the Israelites were not to seek to enable the other peoples to live in peace and prosperity (so Good News Translation, Revised English Bible). This latter interpretation reflects the original context of the clause in Deut 23.6. New International Version condenses the two ideas of peace and prosperity into a single expression saying that the Israelites should not try to make a “treaty of friendship” with their neighbors. This is based on the instructions in Exo 34.12, 15 and the political implications of this phrase from Deut 23.6. New Jerusalem Bible says that they should not concern themselves “about peace or good relations with them.” It is best to translate the clause as in Revised Standard Version or Good News Translation without reference to a treaty that is not mentioned in the text.
The result of obeying these prohibitions is to be a threefold blessing: to be strong (Deut 11.8); to eat the good of the land (Deut 8.11-12; compare Isa 1.19; Jer 2.7); and to leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever (Deut 11.9; compare Ezek 37.25). The first blessing is the well-being of the nation, the second is the well-being of the people, and the third is the well-being of the people’s descendants. Good News Translation translates the first two ideas in one expression, “to enjoy the land,” but it is preferable to retain the three distinct elements as is done by most translations.
Be strong may be translated “find strength” or “become strong as a nation.”
Eat the good of the land is a literal translation of the Hebrew. It means to “enjoy the good things that the land offers” (so Bible en français courant, New English Bible), such as what is described by Moses in Deut 8 and 11. New Jerusalem Bible says “live off the fat of the land,” which is a colloquial expression in English. Some languages may say “have a profitable land.”
Inheritance is a keyword in God’s relationship with his people. It expresses the concept that the land is given to them by God without their earning it or winning it. Here it has its primary sense of leaving land for one’s children, but its use recalls also the theological significance of the term. Similarly to Good News Translation, New English Bible translates the last clause as “and pass it on to your children as an everlasting possession.”
The quotation within the quotation that began with verse 11 ends here. This may be indicated with a closing quotation mark as Revised Standard Version has done.
Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Ezra. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
9:12a Now, therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons.
Now therefore, do (plur.) not allow any of your daughters to marry their sons or take their daughters as wives for your sons. -or-
So, do not allow marriages between your daughters and their sons or your sons and their daughters. -or-
That is why you told us not to let our (excl.) young women marry those foreign men and not to let the men of Israel marry the young women of the land.
9:12b Never seek their peace or prosperity,
Do (plur.) not ever help them prosper or succeed. -or-
Never do anything that will cause/bring them well-being or prosperity. -or-
You said that from now to the end of time we (excl.) should not even let them live in happiness or help them in any way.
9:12c so that you may be strong and may eat the good things of the land,
Do these things so that you (plur.) will be a strong people/nation, you (plur.) will enjoy eating the good food grown on the land, -or-
If you obey these instructions, you will establish yourselves firmly in the land. You will enjoy the good things the land produces -or-
Only by doing that we would be strong as a nation. The land would produce good crops that we would eat to our joy/happiness.
9:12d leaving it as an inheritance to your sons forever.’
and you (plur.) and your children will live in this land forever.’ -or-
and pass the land on to your children as their inheritance into the future. -or-
And it would belong to our descendants from that time and/until forever.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.