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)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 51:44:
Kupsabiny: “I will punish Bel whom the people of Babylon worship and make him return what he has eaten. Never shall other nations be coming and going to it and the wall of Babylon will fall down.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “I will-punish Bel the god of Babilonia. I will-have- him -vomit what he had-devoured. Nations will no longer come to worship him. And the walls of the Babilonia will-fall-down.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “And I will punish Bel, the god that the people of Babylon worship, and I will cause the people to give back what they have stolen. People of other nations will no longer come to worship Bel. And the walls of Babylon will collapse.’” (Source: Translation for Translators)
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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.
Bel in Babylon is “Bel, the god of Babylonia” (Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Bible en français courant). See 50.2.
Take out of his mouth what he has swallowed: In verse 34 Babylonia is compared to a monster that has devoured the nation Israel. Good News Translation renders “make him give up his stolen goods.”
The nations shall no longer flow to him is taken by Good News Translation to mean “the nations will not worship him [Bel] any more.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch combines a literal rendering of the text with its interpretation: “The people will no longer stream to him to bring him their offering!”
The wall of Babylon has fallen: Revised Standard Version takes this as a closing statement; it may actually be a rhetorical device (“inclusio”) in which the sense of the opening statement in verse 41 is repeated here. However, both Good News Translation and Bible en français courant begin a new paragraph here, so as to place this statement with the commands of verse 45. Translators can choose to follow either of these options.
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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