Translation commentary on Jeremiah 32:34 - 32:35

Verses 34-35 are essentially the same as 7.30-31. See there for discussion of these verses.

We note that here Baal and Molech are identified (verse 35). Since Molech is a distortion of the Hebrew word for king (melech) with the vowels for the word meaning “shame” (bosheth), it is thought that Molech may be a title developed by the Hebrews to express contempt. As in Good News Translation, translators can say “the god Molech.”

That they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin: They in this expression seems to refer to the people of Judah and Israel listed in verse 32. This makes to cause Judah to sin a little confusing. One possible way to understand it is that the actions of a few have made the whole nation guilty of sin. Translators could therefore translate the last part of this verse “… and make the nation Judah guilty of sin.”

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 .

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”.