25Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You and your wives have accomplished in deeds what you declared in words, saying, ‘We are determined to perform the vows that we have made, to make offerings to the queen of heaven and to pour out libations to her.’ By all means, keep your vows and make your libations!
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 that is translated as “Lord of hosts” in English (or: “Yahweh of Armies” [translation by John Goldingay, 2018], “Hashem, Master of Legions” [ArtScroll Tanach translation, 2011]) is translated in various ways: It’s translated as “God the Highest Ruler” in Kankanaey, as “Lord Almighty” in Newari, as Mndewa Imulungu or “Lord with all power” in Kutu (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext), as Wànjūnzhī Yēhéhuá (万军之耶和华) or “Jehovah of 10,000 [=all] armies” in Mandarin Chinese, as “Yawe God of the universe” in Mandinka, and in the German (Luther) Bible the second part of the name is transliterated: Herr Zebaoth or “Lord Zebaoth” (Swedish, Finnish and Latvian use the same translation strategy). The Russian Orthodox Synod translation uses a transliteration of the second part of the designation as well: Господь Саваоф / Gospod’ Savaof.
The traditional French translation of l’Eternel/Yahve/le Seigneur/Seigneur des armées (“Lord of the armies”) presents a problem when listened to, as Jean-Marc Babut explains (in The Bible Translator 1985, p. 411ff. ):
“For the hearer, the traditional translation l’Eternel/Yahvé/le Seigneur des armées can easily be taken in a bad sense: there is nothing, in fact, to prevent the listener from hearing l’Eternel désarmé, ‘the Eternal One disarmed’ or ‘stripped of his power’! (…). Thus the Bible en français courant [publ. 1997] has decided to use the expression Seigneur/Dieu de l’univers, “Lord/God of the Universe”. This formula, which has an undeniably liturgical ring, seems to have been favorably received by users.”
Other, later French Bibles who have chosen a similar strategy, include Parole de Vie (publ. 2017) with Seigneur de l’univers or Bible Segond 21 (publ. 2007) with l’Eternel, le maître de l’univers.
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, the Jarai translation uses the exclusive pronoun, excluding the Lord.
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