compassion

The Hebrew, Greek, Ge’ez, and Latin that is typically as “compassion” in English (“compassion” comes from the Latin compatior and means suffering with) is translated in various ways:

  • Shilluk´: “cries in the soul” (source: Nida, 1952, p. 132)
  • Q’anjob’al: “crying in one’s stomach” (source: Newberry and Kittie Cox in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 91ff. )
  • Aari: “has a good stomach” (=”sympathetic”) (source: Loren Bliese)
  • Una: “has a big liver” (source: Kroneman 2004, p. 471)
  • Uma: “heart is moved (lit., far-away)” (source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Chitonga: “to have the intestines twisting in compassion/sorrow for someone” (kumyongwa) (source: Wendland 1987, p. 128f.)

See also pain-love, moved with compassion (pity), and Seat of the Mind for traditional views of “ways of knowing, thinking, and feeling.”

complete verse (Jeremiah 12:15)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 12:15:

  • Kupsabiny: “And when I have removed those people to go to another place, I will show them mercy. I shall bring every community to return to their own farm and own land.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “But later on, I will- again -have- compassion to these nations and I will-bring- them -back to their own land.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “But later I will act mercifully toward those nations again, and I will bring them back to their own lands again. Each clan will come back to its own land.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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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.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 12:15

I have plucked them up: Most translators attempt to use the same expression in this verse for plucked … up as they used in verse 14. It may be important to identify them in this verse as “all these people” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).

Have compassion is first used in 6.23, where Revised Standard Version translates “have … mercy.”

Each to his heritage and each to his land is translated “each nation back to its own land and to its own country” by Good News Translation. It is permissible either to equate heritage and land (“to their own land and country”) or else to allow heritage to modify land (“to their own land” or “to the land that they once possessed”).

Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch renders this verse:

• Then I will again have mercy on all these people: they will each return to their own land and to their own possessions.

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 .