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 show different degree of politeness is through the choice of a second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used anata (あなた) is typically used when the speaker is humbly addressing another person.
In these verses, however, omae (おまえ) is used, a cruder second person pronoun, that Jesus for instance chooses when chiding his disciples. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Why do you boast of your valleys: As the Revised Standard Version note indicates, after valleys the Hebrew has “your valley flows.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project proposes the rendering “Why do you boast of your valleys, saying that your valley is fertile [that is, flowing]?” Bible en français courant follows this with “You boast of your valley, of your luxurious valley.” A number of scholars take the Hebrew word rendered “valley” to mean “strength,” and “flowing” to mean “ebbing,” and so give the equivalent of “Why do you glory in your strength, your ebbing strength, rebellious daughter?” (New American Bible).
Faithless daughter: For faithless see 3.14. Daughter is inclusive for “people,” so Good News Translation has “unfaithful people.”
Treasures renders the same word translated “storehouses” in 10.13. New Jerusalem Bible renders “resources.”
Saying, ‘Who will come against me?’: This is shifted to indirect discourse by Good News Translation as “and say that no one would dare attack you?” The use of indirect discourse avoids a quotation within a quotation.
Rather than reproducing the rhetorical question form of the verse, it is often helpful to use an affirmation, as in:
• You unfaithful people, you boast about your valleys, saying how rich they are. You trust in your own resources, and say that no one will attack 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 .
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