9Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan swore to them and their troops, saying, “Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Stay in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall go well with you.
Cherokee: “putting one’s hand up to someone” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 16)
In Bauzi “swear” can be translated in various ways. In Hebrews 6:13, for instance, it is translated with “bones break apart and decisively speak.” (“No bones are literally broken but by saying ‘break bones’ it is like people swear by someone else in this case it is in relation to a rotting corpse’ bones falling apart. If you ‘break bones’ so to speak when you make an utterance, it is a true utterance.”) In other passages, such as in Matthew 26:72, it’s translated with an expression that implies taking ashes (“if a person wants everyone to know that he is telling the truth about a matter, he reaches down into the fireplace, scoops up some ashes and throws them while saying ‘I was not the one who did that.'”). So in Matthew 26:72 the Bauzi text is: “. . . Peter took ashes and defended himself saying, ‘I don’t know that Nazareth person.'” (Source: David Briley)
The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that is typically translated in English as “serve,” “minister,” “walk with,” or “service” is translated in Igede as myị ẹrụ or “agree with message (of the one you’re serving).” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
In Quetzaltepec Mixe, “serve” is translated as “obey.” (Source: Robert Bascom)
The Greek and Hebrew that is translated as “son of” in English is translated in all Icelandic Bible versions of the Icelandic Bible Society (latest edition 2007) in parallel with the Icelandic naming system . This means that for instance in Matthew 16:17 the name that is transliterated and translated in English as “Simon son of Jonah” becomes “Simon Jónasson” or in Isaiah 8:2 “Zechariah son of Jeberechiah” becomes “Sakaría Jeberekíason” where in both cases the “-son” means “son of.”
In cases where “son of” does not refer to a literal father or perhaps stepfather but to lineage, however, this system is not used. So in Matthew 1:1 “Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” is translated as “Jesú Krists, sonar Davíðs, sonar Abrahams.”
The referenced verses all have at least one instance where the Icelandic patronymic or matronymic naming system is used. (Source: Halldór Elías Guðmundsson)
The name that is transliterated as “Chaldean” in English means “astrologer,” “wanderers.” (Source: Cornwall / Smith 1997 )
In Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) it is translated with the sign that combines “Mesopotamia” (see here) and “spreading out,” since the Chaldeans originated in southern Mesopotamia and spread out from there. (Source: Missão Kophós )
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 40:9:
Kupsabiny: “Then Gedaliah son of Ahikam who was son of Shaphan swore to those men. He said, ‘Do not be afraid when/if the Babylonians rule over you. Stay/live in this land and accept to be ruled over so that you can get peace.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “Gedalia assured/[lit. swore] to them and their men, ‘Do not be afraid being under-the-jurisdiction of those from-Babilonia. You (plur.) just stay in this land and serve the king of Babilonia, and everything will go well with you.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “Gedaliah solemnly promised that the soldiers from Babylonia would not harm them. He said, ‘Do not be afraid to do things for them. Stay here in this land and do things for the King of Babylon. If you do that, things will go well for you.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Some languages do not have a concept of kingship and therefore no immediate equivalent for the Greek, Hebrew, Ge’ez, Aramaic, and Latin that is translated as “king” in English. Here are some (back-) translations:
Ninia Yali: “big brother with the uplifted name” (source: Daud Soesilio in Noss 2007, p. 175)
Nyamwezi: mutemi: generic word for ruler, by specifying the city or nation it becomes clear what kind of ruler (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Ghomála’: Fo (“The word Fo refers to the paramount ruler in the kingdoms of West Cameroon. He holds administrative, political, and religious power over his own people, who are divided into two categories: princes (descendants of royalty) and servants (everyone else).” (Source: Michel Kenmogne in Theologizing in Context: An Example from the Study of a Ghomala’ Christian Hymn))
Faye Edgerton retells how the term in Navajo (Dinė) was determined:
“[This term was] easily expressed in the language of Biblical culture, which had kings and noblemen with their brilliant trappings and their position of honor and praise. But leadership among the Navajos is not accompanied by any such titles or distinctions of dress. Those most respected, especially in earlier days, were their headmen, who were the leaders in raids, and the shaman, who was able to serve the people by appealing for them to the gods, or by exorcising evil spirits. Neither of these made any outward show. Neither held his position by political intrigue or heredity. If the headman failed consistently in raids, he was superceded by a better warrior. If the shaman failed many times in his healing ceremonies, it was considered that he was making mistakes in the chants, or had lost favor with the gods, and another was sought. The term Navajos use for headman is derived from a verb meaning ‘to move the head from side to side as in making an oration.’ The headman must be a good orator, able to move the people to go to war, or to follow him in any important decision. This word is naat’áanii which now means ‘one who rules or bosses.’ It is employed now for a foreman or boss of any kind of labor, as well as for the chairman of the tribal council. So in order to show that the king is not just a common boss but the highest ruler, the word ‘aláahgo, which expresses the superlative degree, was put before naat’áanii, and so ‘aláahgo naat’áanii ‘anyone-more-than-being around-he-moves-his-head-the-one-who’ means ‘the highest ruler.’ Naat’áanii was used for governor as the context usually shows that the person was a ruler of a country or associated with kings.”
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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 formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
Gedaliah the son of Ahikam: Since verse 5, this is the fourth full identification of Gedaliah. It is doubtful that such repetition would be acceptable for most languages.
The term swore means “gave his word.” For the first part of the verse, translators can either say “Gedaliah gave them his word that they did not need to be afraid to surrender” or, similar to Good News Translation, “Gedaliah said to them, ‘I swear to you that you do not need to be afraid to serve.’ ”
Them and their men are “all the captains of the forces … and their men” referred to in verse 7.
To serve the Chaldeans: In this context the sense is “to surrender to the Babylonians” (Good News Translation). However, later in the sentence, serve the king of Babylon is usually translated literally or as “accept him as ruler.” As elsewhere, the Chaldeans are the Babylonians (see 21.4).
Dwell in the land has the sense of “settle down” or “make your home.”
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 .
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