hardened / stubborn

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The Hebrew and Greek that is typically translated in English as “hardened” or “stubborn” is translated in the Hausa Common Language Bible idiomatically as taurin kai or “tough head.”

Other languages spoken in Nigeria translate similarly: Abua uses oḅom ẹmhu or “strong head,” Bura-Pabir kəra ɓəɓal or “hard head,” Gokana agẹ̀ togó or “hard/strong head,” Igede egbeju-ọngịrị or “hard head,” Dera gɨddɨng koi or “strong head,” Reshe ɾiʃitə ɾigbaŋgba or “strong head,” and in Chadian Arabic raas gawi (رَاسْكُو قَوِي) or “hard head” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)

Other translation approaches include Western Bukidnon Manobo with “breath is very hard” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation) or Ixil with “callous heart” (source: Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 40).

See also hardness of heart.

bronze

The Hebrew, Latin, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated as “bronze” in English is translated in Newari as “bell-metal,” since bells are made of bronze in Nepal (source: Newari Back Translation).

See also bronze vessel.

complete verse (Jeremiah 6:28)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 6:28:

  • Kupsabiny: “All these people are rebels and their heads are hard/stubborn.
    They have loved to go around backbiting,
    and their heads are hard like bronze and iron.
    They are corrupt and liked bribes.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “All of them are rebellious and hard-headed, as hard as bronze and iron. What they do is making- others -bad and deceive (other).” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “You will find out that they are very stubborn rebels,
    they are always slandering others.
    Their inner beings are as hard as bronze or iron;
    they all continually deceive others.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 6:28

Stubbornly rebellious: See 5.23 (“a stubborn and rebellious heart”).

The noun translated slanders is found also in 9.4, where Revised Standard Version has “slanderer”; elsewhere in the Old Testament it is found in Lev 19.16; Ezek 22.9; Pro 11.13 (“talebearer”); 20.19 (“gossiping”). It is used of persons who speak evil of other persons, and Good News Translation translates it with the sense of “spreading gossip.” However, Moffatt understands the word to be used with the LORD as object: “slandering me up and down!”

They are bronze and iron is much better rendered as a comparison: “they are like bronze and iron” or “they are as hard as bronze and iron.” Bassa in Liberia has “Their hearts are hardened like bronze and iron.” Good News Translation reorders the clauses in the verse, placing they are bronze and iron immediately following they are all stubbornly rebellious: “They are all stubborn rebels, hard as bronze and iron.”

Act corruptly can be “practice dishonesty.”

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 .