rebuke / discipline (Japanese honorifics)

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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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017.

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “rebuke” or “discipline” in English is translated in the Shinkaiyaku Bible as o-shikari (お授け), combining “rebuke” (shikari) with the respectful prefix o-. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also rebuke (Japanese honorifics).

complete verse (Job 33:19)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 33:19:

  • Kupsabiny: “God can even send sickness to a person to discipline him
    and cause an illness to enter (him) for a long time.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “or again, from the unceasing pain in his bones
    on his bed of suffering, a man gets instruction.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Sometimes God disciplines man through sickness that causes- him -to-suffer like the continuous aching of bone,” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “He does not favor rulers more than he favors others;
    he does not favor rich people more than poor people,
    because he created all of them.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 33:19

Man is also chastened with pain upon his bed: is chastened is a passive construction which Good News Translation expresses as active: “God corrects a man.” With pain is the way God corrects, and may require a verb to relate it to the first clause; for example, as in Good News Translation, “by sending pain,” or “by means of sickness,” or “by allowing him to become sick.” Good News Translation considers upon his bed as implied in “sending sickness.” Bible en français courant expresses this phrase as “sickness which sends him to bed.”

And with continual strife in his bones: this line has an alternative reading in the Hebrew. Revised Standard Version translates the form in the written text. King James Version follows the other alternative: “and the multitude of his bones with strong pain.” Most modern translations follow the same text as Revised Standard Version. Strife is not a word that is used in English in connection with the bones. The reference is to suffering in the bones, which Good News Translation translates as “pain.” Dhorme prefers “a continual shaking of his bones, which may imply fever,” and Bible en français courant says “Fever makes his limbs constantly tremble.” Good News Translation is an adequate rendering for the general picture; Bible en français courant is better for capturing the poetic image.

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 .