Verses 24-25 state the reason why Wisdom will mock at those who reject her invitation. Each verse consists of two lines that have essentially the same meaning.
“Because I have called and you refused to listen”: “Called” here has the sense of “invited” or “advised.” “Listen” is not expressed in the Hebrew but is the obvious sense of “refused”.
“Stretched out my hand” refers to the gesture of beckoning or inviting someone to come toward the one calling.
“No one has heeded”: “Heeded” renders a verb meaning to pay attention, so some translate “No one has paid any attention to me.” Contemporary English Version says “You completely ignored me.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Proverbs 1:24:
Kupsabiny: “You (plur.) deny me when I call, and there is no person who can listen to me when I stretch my hand out wanting to deliver/rescue/save you (plur.).” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “[Since] you did not listen to what I said, When I stretched out my hand you showed no concern.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “Because you (plur.) did- not -pay-attention when I called you (plur.) that you (plur.) come-near me,” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “I am inviting you but you absolutely don’t pay-attention-to-me.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
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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.
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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 second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used anata (あなた) is typically used when the speaker is humbly addressing another person.
In these verses, however, omae (おまえ) is used, a cruder second person pronoun, that Jesus for instance chooses when chiding his disciples. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
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