complete verse (Jeremiah 50:36)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 50:36:

  • Kupsabiny: “The prophets of lies will become fools
    and they will get finished/destroyed.
    Soldiers will be anxious/sense danger
    and they will faint completely.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “This will- also -land to her false prophets, and they will-become fools. And also to her soldiers, and they will-become very afraid!” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “They will strike their false prophets with swords
    and they will become foolish.
    They will strike the strongest warriors of Babylonia,
    and they will all be terrified.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 50:36

A sword upon: See verse 35.

Diviners is rendered “lying prophets” by Good News Translation (New International Version “false prophets”). The same word (or a different word of the same spelling) is found in 48.30, where Revised Standard Version renders “boasts.” The meaning of the word is “empty talk” or “bragging,” though it is apparently used in Isa 44.25 with the same meaning that it has here. Diviners are people who read certain signs or get information from some god or spirit power and then make pronouncements or deliver messages. Since Jeremiah would not believe they really had a message from God, “false prophets” is probably acceptable. Of course, if diviners are known in a society, then the appropriate term for them can be used; or we may say “interpreters of signs.”

Become fools translates the same verb used in 5.4 (Revised Standard Version “have no sense”). Elsewhere in the Old Testament it is found in Num 12.11; Isa 19.13. Here the idea is that since they are not speaking the truth, they will seem to be fools when war comes. Therefore translators can say something like “They will be seen to be fools.” For the first two lines Contemporary English Version has “This war will prove that your prophets are liars and fools.”

That they may be destroyed: The word translated destroyed often has the meaning of “dismayed” or “terrified” (see 1.17); hence Good News Translation has “how terrified they are!” Or translators can say “that they all may be terrified.”

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 .