7I hear that you have shearers; now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel.
The Greek and Hebrew that is translated as “shepherd” in English is translated in Kouya as Bhlabhlɛɛ ‘yliyɔzʋnyɔ — ” tender of sheep.”
Philip Saunders (p. 231) explains:
“Then one day they tackled the thorny problem of ‘shepherd’. It was problematic because Kouyas don’t have herdsmen who stay with the sheep all the time. Sheep wander freely round the village and its outskirts, and often a young lad will be detailed to drive sheep to another feeding spot. So the usual Kouya expression meant a ‘driver of sheep’, which would miss the idea of a ‘nurturing’ shepherd. ‘A sheep nurturer’ was possible to say, but it was unnatural in most contexts. The group came up with Bhlabhlɛɛ ‘yliyɔzʋnyɔ which meant ‘a tender of sheep’, that is one who keeps an eye on the sheep to make sure they are all right. All, including the translators, agreed that this was a most satisfactory solution.”
Other translations include:
Chuj: “carer” (there was no single word for “shepherd”) (source: Ronald Ross)
Muna: “sheep guard” (dhagano dhumba) (there was no immediate lexical equivalent) (source: René van den Berg),
Mairasi: “people who took care of domesticated animals” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, the Jarai and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the exclusive pronoun, excluding Nabal.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of 1 Samuel 25:7:
Kupsabiny: “So, I hear that you are busy cutting wool of your sheep. I even recall the time I was with your people who were looking after your sheep in Carmel, nothing was stolen nor were they disturbed.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “I have heard that you have been shearing your sheep. Even though your sheep herdsmen stayed with us for many days we didn’t give them any trouble, and also while they were in Carmel nothing of theirs got lost.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “I heard-the-news that you (sing.) are-shearing your (sing.) sheep. When your (sing.) one-who-watch-over the sheep (were) with us (excl.) at Carmel, we (excl.) did- not -mistreat (them)/were- not -cruel (to them) and nothing of theirs went-missing/was-lost.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “‘ heard people say that you are cutting the wool from your sheep. Previously, when your shepherds were among us, we did not harm them. All the time that your shepherds were among us at Camel, we did not steal any sheep from them.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
That you have shearers is not intended to focus on the fact that there are workers whose occupation is that of shearing and who belong to Nabal. Rather the emphasis is on the fact that the people doing this work were active at the time and working for Nabal. So it will be better to translate using a present continuous [or, progressive] tense in most cases. This may be translated “that your men are shearing sheep” or “that your shearers are at work.”
The writer does not make clear in this verse in what sense Nabal’s shepherds had been with David’s men. But verses 15-16 suggest that the shepherds were working near where David and his men were staying. There is no suggestion that the shepherds had joined David’s band of warriors.
And they missed nothing: literally “and nothing was lacking [or, missing] to them.” In this context the sense of these words is that David and his men did not steal anything from Nabal’s shepherds. Some other ways of expressing this idea are “we stole nothing from them” (New Century Version) or “nor did they lose anything” (Anchor Bible).
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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