gathering / arriving together

In Gbaya, the notion of a gathering or arriving together is emphasized with the ideophone mgbúzúk. Note that in Psalm 78:24 mgbúzúk refers to the manna that is coming all at once like rain.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

complete verse (Job 30:14)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 30:14:

  • Kupsabiny: “These people attack me like enemies that have broken down a wall
    swarming around me like bees.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Squeezing through the gaping holes in the walls,
    they come across the collapsed walls pushing and jostling.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “They attack me like soldiers that go-through into a big hole of the ruined stoned-wall.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “It is as though I am a city wall and they have broken through the wall,
    and they have come crashing down on me.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 30:14

As through a wide breach they come: the figure of an assault on a besieged city continues. The enemy is depicted as making a hole in the city wall and pouring in, wave upon wave. The Revised Standard Version footnote implies that there has been a textual change, but this is a translational matter. Through a wide breach translates the same expression found in Amos 4.3. They come refers to soldiers or enemies entering the city. The action is seen from Job’s point of view inside the besieged city, or as Good News Translation says, “in my defenses.” This line may be more clearly translated as a simile; for example, “They attack me like soldiers breaking through a wall” or “They break through the wall that defends me.”

Amid the crash they roll on: the subject is the same as in the first line, an indefinite they. The Hebrew has “under the crash,” probably giving the picture that the invaders rush in while the stones of the wall are still falling. New English Bible expresses this as “at the moment of the crash.” The word translated roll on has the same root as in Amos 5.24, “Let justice roll down like waters.” The noun form of this verb means “wave,” and the succession of troops pouring through the gap in the wall is described as being like a series of ocean waves. On the whole, Revised Standard Version is a clear rendering of this verse, closer to the Hebrew form, and to be recommended to translators rather than Good News Translation.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .