complete verse (Job 39:6)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 39:6:

  • Kupsabiny: “I gave (them) to live in the wilderness to become theirs
    and the salt flats became theirs.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “I have given it a home in the wasteland,
    a valley of salt to live in.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “I am the one-who-gave him the desolate-place as his dwelling-place; I have- him -stay in the land which it was- already -abandoned.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “I am the one who put them in the desert,
    in places where grass does not grow.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on Job 39:6

The steppe for his home names the place God has given the wild donkey to live. In 24.5 the wild donkey is associated with the desert and the wilderness. Both terms emphasize the uninhabited and uncultivated nature of such a place. The term rendered steppe here is the same as the one translated as “wilderness” in 24.5. In the second line salt land, which matches steppe in the first line, refers to ground that is infertile, an area that will not produce grass or food. In Judges 9.45 the land was sown with salt to make it infertile. The “salt plains” near the Dead Sea were known to lack vegetation. See also Jeremiah 17.6; Psalm 107.34. Good News Translation translates “salt plains.” In some languages the word translated as steppe will be translated as “desert” or “place where no one lives or cultivates,” and salt land as “a place where no grass grows.” Verse 6 may then be translated as “I gave them a place to live where people do not live or farm, and a place where the grass does not grow.”

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 .