The Hebrew, Latin, Ge’ez, and Greek that is transliterated as “Jacob” in English is translated in Spanish Sign Language with a sign that signifies “lentil,” referring to the soup he gave his brother in exchange for his birthright (see Genesis 25:34). Note that another Spanish Sign Language sign for Jacob also users the sign for Jewish. (Source: Steve Parkhurst)
In Finnish Sign Language it is translated with the signs signifying “smooth arm” (referring to the story starting at Genesis 27:11). (Source: Tarja Sandholm)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Genesis 49:2:
Newari: “‘Listen, all [you] sons of Jacob, hear what your father Israel has to say.'” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “Children/(sons), [you (pl.)] come-near and listen to me your (pl.) father.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “‘Gather around me in order that I can tell you what will happen in the future. My sons, come and listen to me. I am your father, Jacob, whom God named 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 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. )
Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob: Assemble translates a different verb than “gather” in verse 1, but the sense is the same. In the poetic parallelism of this verse, hear is repeated in the second line, where Revised Standard Version translates it as hearken. See Good News Translation, which has “listen … listen.” In the expression O sons of Jacob, O is used by Revised Standard Version to express poetically that he is addressing them formally. Note that Good News Translation does not use this form. In some languages it will be necessary to make clear that Jacob is speaking to his own sons; for example, “you [plural] my sons” or “you [plural] who are my sons.”
The second line repeats not only hear (hearken) but also Jacob (Israel). If Jacob is replaced by “my” in the first line, it may be best to omit Israel in the second line or say “listen to your father.”
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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