complete verse (Jeremiah 21:6)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 21:6:

  • Kupsabiny: “I shall send sicknesses to kill all the people who live in this city and all the animals.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “I will-kill all who live in this city, both man or animal. They will-die of severe disease.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “I will send a very terrible plague/big sickness on the people of this city, and on their domestic animals, and many of them will die.’” (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 21:6

I will smite … they shall die of a great pestilence: The meaning is that the LORD will kill the people and animals by means of a terrible disease. In Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch it is left for readers to assume that the LORD is the one who causes the disaster: “All who live in this city—people and animals alike—will die of a terrible disease.”

Of course, this is a case of hyperbole (exaggeration). As verse 7 demonstrates, not everyone will die. But translators should retain the form here, avoiding something such as “some” or “many.”

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 .