people shall be thrown

In Gbaya, the notion of numerous (“people shall be thrown”) in Jeremiah 14:16 is emphasized with ŋgoɗoso, an ideophone that designates things that are numerous, in clusters, in bundles.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

Jerusalem

The name that is transliterated as “Jerusalem” in English is signed in French Sign Language with a sign that depicts worshiping at the Western Wall in Jerusalem:


“Jerusalem” in French Sign Language (source: La Bible en langue des signes française )

While a similar sign is also used in British Sign Language, another, more neutral sign that combines the sign “J” and the signs for “place” is used as well. (Source: Anna Smith)


“Jerusalem” in British Sign Language (source: Christian BSL, used with permission)

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Jerusalem .

complete verse (Jeremiah 14:16)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 14:16:

  • Kupsabiny: “And the people whom they have spoken those words to, famine and war shall also kill those and they shall be thrown in the streets of Jerusalem so that no one can bury them including their wives, girls and boys, because I shall send calamity/death to them for their evil.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “And concerning the people whom they tell their messages, their corpse will-be-thrown-out into the streets of Jerusalem. They will-die because of war and famine. No one will-bury them, of their wives, and of their children. I will-pour-out on them the punishment which is fitting to them.’” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “And the people to whom they are predicting these things, they and their wives and their sons and their daughters, will also die from wars or from famines. Their corpses will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem, and there will not be anyone to bury them. I will punish them like they deserve to be punished.” (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 14:16

The LORD’s judgment will fall not only on the false prophets, but also upon those persons who so eagerly listened to their messages.

The people, as the last half of the verse makes clear, is actually a reference to the dead bodies of the people: “The people … will be killed in the same way. Their bodies…” (Good News Translation). For the first sentence of this verse, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “And the same thing will happen to the people who listen to these prophesies. Their bodies will lie all around on the streets of Jerusalem, together with the bodies of their women and children.”

For I will pour out their wickedness upon them is a way of stating that their punishment will conform to their sin. An American Translation has “for I will pour out upon them the trouble which they deserve” and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “Thus I will punish them for their disobedience.”

The whole verse may be restructured as follows:

• And the people they made these declarations to will meet the same end. They will die from war and from starvation, all of them and their wives and sons and daughters. Their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, and there will be no one to bury them. For I will bring evil to them as they have been evil.

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 .