complete verse (Proverbs 27:25)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Proverbs 27:25:

  • Kupsabiny: “Take you animals to where grass is plenty,
    and/but that place becomes short of grass, take them to another place.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “After the hay is harvested, new grass sprouts up.
    Until that time [i.e. when the new grass sprouts]
    branches and leaves are gathered in the high plateau.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Cut-down the grass; and while they grow again, cut-down also the grass on the mountains, so-that your (sing.) animals always have food.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “If you (sing.) have-cut the fodder on the mountain, it will grow again. Also sickle-cut (sing.) the rice-stalks at the harvest-season so-that the animals will have something to eat. If you (sing.) do all that,” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • English: “After you cut the hay and store it to feed the animals in the winter while a new crop of hay is growing,” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Proverbs 27:25

Verses 25-27 speak of the rewards that come to the herder of stock. Verse 25 serves as a time clause for the main statement in verse 26.

“When the grass is gone, and the new growth appears”: “Grass” in this line and “herbage” in the second line refer to the same thing, that is, “hay,” “fodder,” or “feed.” “The new growth” means the tender young shoots of grass that begin to grow after the taller grass has been harvested and the rains have started.

“And the herbage of the mountains is gathered”: This line is parallel in meaning to “When the grass is gone”. “The mountains” refers to the higher parts of the country that get more rainfall and where the grass grows better. “Gathered” means that the grass is cut and stored as hay for feeding to the animals in the winter. We may translate this verse, for example, “When the grass has been cut for hay and the tender shoots appear, and when the hay on the mountain slopes has been harvested and stored. . ..”

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 .

Honorary "rare" construct denoting God ("take")

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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 usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme rare (られ) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, to-rare-ru (取られる) or “take” is used.

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