21“These people are friendly with us; let them live in the land and trade in it, for the land is large enough for them; let us take their daughters in marriage, and let us give them our daughters.
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, the Jarai and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the inclusive pronoun, including everyone.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Genesis 34:21:
Newari: “‘These are good people. Keeping them here we will allow them to do business. There is still much room for them to live in our place. Then we will also be able to marry their daughters, we will also be able to give our daughters to them.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “They said, ‘These people (are) friendly. So we (incl.) will- just -let- them -stay here now and be-allowed to-do-business here. Anyway, this place of ours is also big. We (incl.) can-marry their young-ladies and they can- also -marry our (incl.) young-ladies.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “‘These men are friendly toward us. We should let them live here and travel around (OR, buy and sell things) and if they find land that they want, they can buy it. There is plenty of land for them to live here. Our young men can marry their daughters, and their young men can marry our daughters.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
These men are friendly with us: These men refers to Jacob and his sons. Friendly translates an adjectival form of the Hebrew shalom and expresses their peaceful and friendly intentions, as misunderstood by Hamor and his son. In some languages a peaceful and friendly attitude is expressed simply as “are good people” or “are a good group.”
Let them dwell in the land: translators will notice that with us is linked in Revised Standard Version to friendly. However, in Good News Translationwith us is connected to dwell in the land. The reason for the difference is that Good News Translation follows the Septuagint and the src Samaritan Pentateuchsrc*. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, which acknowledges some degree of doubt in the Hebrew text, recommends the translation of Revised Standard Version.
And trade in it: for trade see the recommendation in verse 10.
The land is large enough for them is literally “the land is wide on both hands.” Westermann says concerning this expression that it “imagines that the arms are stretched out on both sides to indicate the extent of the land.”
Let us take … give them our daughters: see verse 9.
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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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 third person singular and plural pronoun (“he,” “she,” “it” and their various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. While it’s not uncommon to avoid pronouns altogether in Japanese, there are is a range of third person pronouns that can be used. In these verses a number of them are used that pay particularly much respect to the referred person (or, in fact, God, as in Exodus 15:2), including kono kata (この方), sono kata (その方), and ano kata (あの方), meaning “this person,” “that person,” and “that person over there.”
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