“Navajo (Dinė) distinguishes between a man’s son or daughter and a woman’s son or daughter by the use of different terms for each. So the gender of Zion had to be determined. The problem was settled when a friend called to our attention a number of verses in the Old Testament where Zion is referred to as “she” or “her”, e.g. Ps. 87:5, 48:12, Is. 4:5, 66:8. The term for a woman’s daughter is biché’é, so the “daughter of Zion” became Záiyon biché’é ‘Zion her-daughter’.” (Source: Faye Edgerton in The Bible Translator 1962, p. 25ff. .)
In the English translation by Goldingay (2018) it is translated as Miss Tsiyyon (or: Zion).
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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 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. )
Verses 2-3 picture Jerusalem as though it were a beautiful pasture land, where shepherds come to feed their flocks. But verses 4-5 immediately identify the shepherds and their flocks as hostile armies, set on the destruction of the city.
The comely and delicately bred I will destroy represents the interpretation suggested by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project. However, the meaning is uncertain. First, the word rendered comely (Good News Translation “beautiful”) may also mean “meadow” or “pasture.” Second, the verb rendered destroy may also mean “be like” or “resemble.” Third, the form of the verb may be first person singular or an old second feminine singular form, as is often found in Jeremiah. Consequently, one possible translation, suggested in one commentary (Holladay), would be “You are like the most delicate pasture, fair Zion!” This actually fits well in the context of the following verse, where the shepherds come with their flocks against Jerusalem.
Finally, there are some scholars who believe that the text as it stands is corrupt, and should be rendered as a question form: “Is it a meadow fair, the higher slopes of Sion?” (Moffatt). However, there is no textual basis for this rendering, only the imaginative restructuring of an assumed corrupted text.
Both Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch apparently accept the interpretation proposed by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project. However, each of these translations shifts to an impersonal construction: “The city of Zion is beautiful, but it will be destroyed” (Good News Translation) and “Jerusalem, you beautiful, well taken care of city, your end is now here!” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Translators who retain the first person may say something like “City of Zion, you are beautiful and delicate, but I will destroy you.” It may be wise to translate daughter of Zion as “Jerusalem” (so Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) to mark the identity between the two places mentioned in verses 1 and 2. See 4.31.
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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