Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 11:23:
Kupsabiny: “I have prepared a day in which I will crush the people of Anathoth. And when that day arrives, there will not be even one person left alive.’” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “No one else will-be-left alive of those from-Anatot, for I will-send them destruction at the times that they will-be-punished.’” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “I have set a time when I will bring disasters to the people of Anathoth, and when that happens, none of them will remain alive.’” (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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.
Some translators have understood none of them shall be left in a rather narrow sense to refer only to the children. It seems more likely, however, that it refers to all the people of Anathoth, as in “And none of those people will be left [alive].” See Good News Translation “none of them will survive.”
Evil is here used in the sense of “disaster” or “destruction” (see 1.14).
The year of their punishment means “when I [the LORD] come to punish them.”
Good News Translation restructures the verse so that it follows the order in which things happen: the LORD punishes the people with disaster, and none of them survive.
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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