enemy / foe

The Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ge’ez, and Latin that is translated as “enemy” or “foe” in English is translated in the Hausa Common Language Bible as “friends of front,” i.e., the person standing opposite you in a battle. (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)

In North Alaskan Inupiatun it is translated with a term that implies that it’s not just someone who hates you, but one who wants to do you harm (Source: Robert Bascom), in Tarok as ukpa ìkum or “companion in war/fighting,” and in Ikwere as nye irno m or “person who hates me” (source for this and one above: Chuck and Karen Tessaro in this newsletter ).

In Cherokee it is either translated as “the one(s) who reprimand(s) you” or “the one(s) feared.” (Source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 47)

complete verse (Jeremiah 46:22)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 46:22:

  • Kupsabiny: “Egypt will scream like a snake that is fleeing
    because the enemies have come close.
    Those people come with axes
    like people who are cutting down trees.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Those from-Egipto will-flee like a snake that hisses while the enemies are-attacking. They will-attack them with axes like people who are-cutting-down trees.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “The soldiers of Egypt will run away,
    as silently as a snake scurries/crawls away.
    The army of the enemy will advance;
    they will march along carrying their axes
    like men who cut down trees.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 46:22

She makes a sound like a serpent gliding away: Egypt is compared to a snake driven away from its home by woodcutters. Like the snake, the nation can do nothing more than hiss and run in fear. The Hebrew text is literally “her sound is like a snake going,” and it is the Septuagint that has “hissing” in place of “going.” However, on translational grounds it is possible to arrive at the rendering of Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, if we assume that the sound a snake makes as it leaves in fear is a hissing sound. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project prefers “like a snake crawling away.” A possible translation, therefore, is “Egypt hisses like a snake crawling away.”

Her enemies march in force: This can be expressed as “her enemies are coming [or, attacking] in great numbers.”

And come against … fell trees may be rendered “Like men who are cutting down trees, they attack her with axes.”

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 .