שְׁפֹ֣ךְ חֲמָתְךָ֗ עַל־הַגּוֹיִם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹֽא־יְדָע֔וּךָ וְעַל֙ מִשְׁפָּח֔וֹת אֲשֶׁ֥ר בְּשִׁמְךָ֖ לֹ֣א קָרָ֑אוּ כִּֽי־אָכְל֣וּ אֶֽת־יַעֲקֹ֗ב וַאֲכָלֻ֨הוּ֙ וַיְכַלֻּ֔הוּ וְאֶת־נָוֵ֖הוּ הֵשַֽׁמּוּ׃ פ
25Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you
and on the peoples that do not call on your name,
for they have devoured Jacob;
they have devoured him and consumed him
and have laid waste his habitation.
The Hebrew terms that are translated as “family” or “clan” or “house” or similar in English are all translated in Kwere as ng’holo or “clan.” (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
In the English translation by Goldingay (2018) it is translated as “kin-group.”
See also tribe.
The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).
Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).
In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
See also nations.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 10:25:
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
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 Translator 2002, 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.”
In Dutch, Afrikaans, Gronings, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.
See also formal pronoun: disciples addressing Jesus, female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.
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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix mi- (御 or み) can be used, as in mi-na (御名) or “name (of God)” in the referenced verses.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
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 benefactive construction as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017.
Here, sosoide (注いで) or “pour” is used in combination with kudasaru (くださる), a respectful form of the benefactive kureru (くれる). A benefactive reflects the good will of the giver or the gratitude of a recipient of the favor. To convey this connotation, English translation needs to employ a phrase such as “for me (my sake)” or “for you (your sake).” (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
This verse is almost equivalent with Psa 79.6-7. The main difference between the two passages is that the psalm does not include the verb phrase have devoured him, which is also absent from some Hebrew manuscripts and from the Septuagint as well for this verse. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, however, believes it to have been an original part of the Jeremiah passage. It is retained in most translations, though Revised English Bible omits it with a footnote.
Wrath (Good News Translation “anger”) is first used in 4.4. In place of the expression Pour out thy wrath, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “Your wrath must strike.”
That know thee not may mean either “that do not worship you” (Good News Translation) or “who do not acknowledge you” (New Jerusalem Bible; similarly Revised English Bible). The expression that call not on thy name similarly means “who do not worship you” or “who do not acknowledge you as LORD.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch understands that know thee not and that call not on thy name to be equivalent to “who will have nothing to do with you.” The two clauses are evidently similar in meaning, and may be translated by one statement, as in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, or by something such as “who do not acknowledge you as God, nor worship you.”
Jacob (see 2.4; 10.16) is here equivalent to “Israel,” or better “the people of Israel.” Devoured is frequently used to mean “destroyed.” When joined with consumed, the meaning is reinforced to mean “destroyed completely.” If devoured is repeated, as recommended by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, then the third and fourth lines may be rendered “Yes, not only have they killed your people of Israel, they have destroyed them completely.” Further, these foreigners have laid waste his habitation; that is, they have left his country nothing but a wasteland, a barren desert. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates the last three lines of the verse as follows: “As wild animals eat their prey, they have eaten your people until nothing remains, and they have turned your land into a desert.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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