The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “adultery” in English (here etymologically meaning “to alter”) is typically understood as “marital infidelity.” It is (back-) translated in the following ways:
Toraja-Sa’dan: “to measure the depth of the river of (another’s) marriage”
North Alaskan Inupiatun: “married people using what is not theirs” (compare “fornication” which is “unmarried people using what is not theirs”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
In Bauzi “swear” can be translated in various ways. In Hebrews 6:13, for instance, it is translated with “bones break apart and decisively speak.” (“No bones are literally broken but by saying ‘break bones’ it is like people swear by someone else in this case it is in relation to a rotting corpse’ bones falling apart. If you ‘break bones’ so to speak when you make an utterance, it is a true utterance.”) In other passages, such as in Matthew 26:72, it’s translated with an expression that implies taking ashes (“if a person wants everyone to know that he is telling the truth about a matter, he reaches down into the fireplace, scoops up some ashes and throws them while saying ‘I was not the one who did that.'”). So in Matthew 26:72 the Bauzi text is: “. . . Peter took ashes and defended himself saying, ‘I don’t know that Nazareth person.'” (Source: David Briley)
The Hebrew and Greek that is typically transliterated as “Baal” in English is translated in Spanish Sign Language with the sign for “idol.” (Source: Steve Parkhurst)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 7:9:
Kupsabiny: “You steal, kill, commit adultery (women), commit adultery (men), speak/do lying, swear, make sacrifices to Baal and worship idols which you were not doing before.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “You (plur.) steal, kill, commit-adultery-with-a-woman or commit-adultery-with-a-man, witness falsely, burn incense to Baal, and worship other gods that you (plur.) even did not know.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “You think that you can steal things, murder people, commit adultery, tell lies in court, and worship Baal and all those other gods that you did not know about previously,” (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 formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
In Hebrew verses 9-10 are a single sentence, which is carried over into English by Revised Standard Version. The result is a highly complex and difficult construction, containing a question with an embedded statement followed by direct discourse. Since the Hebrew question expects an affirmative answer, it is possible to shift away from a question form to that of a statement, as with Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and New English Bible. Moreover, it is probably best in most languages to divide these verses into several separate sentences, as Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch have done.
In some languages the verb steal must have an object of some kind, as in “You steal things [from others].”
In this verse commit adultery is meant literally, not as a metaphor for being unfaithful to God.
For swear falsely, see 5.2. The idea is to swear an oath insincerely or dishonestly. Revised English Bible uses “perjury,” and Good News Translation has “tell lies under oath.” If neither of these expressions can be used, translators can say “call on God’s name to declare something true when it is false.”
Burn incense may also mean “offer sacrifices” (see 1.16). Translators could also have “you burn incense on altars for Baal.”
For Baal see 2.8.
Go after other gods: See verse 6.
That you have not known means “that you know nothing about” or “that you have had no experience with.” Jeremiah is affirming that the foreign gods are not to be relied on, because Israel has never before had any occasion in which to prove these gods. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “… which are no concern of yours.”
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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