complete verse (Jeremiah 42:16)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 42:16:

  • Kupsabiny: “that it where/when you will meet with a war that will scare you. Also the hunger you think you are fleeing from will follow you and you will die in that land of Egypt.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “the war and famine which you are afraid-of will-follow you (plur.), and there you (plur.) will-die.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “you will experience those wars and famines that you are afraid of, and you will all die there.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)

Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.

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).

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 42:16

The sword once again represents war, as in 5.12, where it is also mentioned in conjunction with famine (Good News Translation “hunger”). The expression the sword … shall overtake you can be rendered “the war … will follow you there.”

Follow hard after translates one word in Hebrew, which Good News Translation, New International Version, and a number of other versions render simply as “follow.” The verb literally means “cleave [to],” and is found elsewhere in 13.11 (Revised Standard Version “cling to”). The famine … shall follow hard after you can be expressed as “the hunger … will still be with you.”

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 .