gentiles / nations

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The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).

Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).

In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

See also nations.

complete verse (Jeremiah 51:20)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 51:20:

  • Kupsabiny: “God is saying,
    ‘Babylon, you are my hammer
    my metal/weapon of war.
    I used you to beat the nations
    and their kings.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “The LORD said, ‘You (sing.) are my something-to-hit, my weapon in battle. Through you I will-destroy the nations and the kingdoms,” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.

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

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 51:20

At the beginning of this new section, both Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch identify the speaker: “The LORD says.”

Since most scholars identify Babylonia as the LORD’s hammer, Good News Translation and others make this identification in the text.

The construction You are my hammer and weapon of war is misleading in that it suggests to the English reader two distinct objects. However, they are one and the same, and this identification must be clear for the reader, especially since hammers are generally not regarded as weapons of war by people today. For this reason, Good News Translation renders “you are my hammer, my weapon of war.” In order to make it evident that a weapon is being spoken of, Moffatt and New English Bible render “battle-axe,” while New Jerusalem Bible translates “mace.” Since both these terms have other different meanings and uses in modern English, they are not very satisfactory renderings here. However, many cultures will be able to use a term such as “battle-ax” with no problem. Another way to render it is “war-club” (New International Version), or translators can sometimes refer to a weapon from their culture which would be used to club people with.

Good News Translation collapses break … in pieces and destroy into one expression, but if translators can retain the two-line parallelism naturally, that is even better.

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 .