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 15:3

For says the LORD, see 1.8. Here it might be more natural at the beginning of the verse, as in Good News Translation.

The root meaning of the Hebrew word translated kinds of destroyers is “clan” or “extended family.” However, in certain contexts it may be used of subdivisions within a major group, which accounts for the variety of renderings: “Four kinds of doom” (New Jerusalem Bible, Revised English Bible), “Four kinds of scourge” (New American Bible), and “Four sorts of death” (Moffatt). I will appoint … destroyers, says the LORD is translated in Good News Translation as “I, the LORD, have decided that four terrible things will happen to them” and by Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch as “I will set loose four terrors against these people….” New International Version has “I will send four kinds of destroyers against them….”

The sword to slay is translated “the sword which will kill people” by Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch; Good News Translation once again renders sword with the equivalent of “war.”

Tear is more commonly rendered “drag off” (with the future tense in Good News Translation) or “drag away” (New Revised Standard Version).

Birds of the air: See the comment at 4.25.

Beasts of the earth: See the comment at 7.33.

Devour may be taken as the action of the birds and destroy as that of the wild animals: “birds will eat them, and wild animals will devour what is left over” (Good News Translation). Other translations do not try to distinguish which does what. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “hyenas and buzzards will eat the flesh of the dead until there is nothing left!” Of course, it is not necessary to identify the birds and wild animals as any particular bird or animal, as Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch does. It is quite sufficient to say something like “birds of prey and wild animals will devour and destroy them.”

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 .