6On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands.
The phrase that is rendered in English versions as “land flowing with milk and honey” (“milk and syrup” in Goldingay [2018]) is translated into Afar as niqmatak tan baaxoy buqre kee lacah meqehiyya: “a blessed land good for fields and cattle.” (Source: Loren Bliese)
In the interconfessional Chichewa translation (publ. 1999) it is translated with the existing proverb dziko lamwanaalirenji or “a land of what (type of food) can the child cry for?” (i.e. there is more than enough to eat). (Source: Ernst Wendland in The Bible Translator 1981, p. 107 )
In Kwere it is “good/fertile land.” (Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The Hebrew word for “honey”, devash, is also used for syrup extracted from figs, dates, and grapes, or from certain types of palm tree. The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey” refers to a land that is fertile and thus rich in pasture, fruit, and the grain and flowers from which bees make honey. (Source: All Creatures Great and Small: Living things in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators) )
In Russian, the phrase молоко и мед (moloko i med) or “milk and honey” is widely used as an idiom in every-day life. (Source: Reznikov 2020, p. 67)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 20:6:
Kupsabiny: “I promised (them) that I would take them from Egypt to the land that I had chosen for them to live in. It was a good land with fertile soil, a land of blessings where milk is flowing and honey and it was very beautiful!” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “At-that time I swore that I will-cause- them -to-come-out of Egipto and will-bring to the land which I chose for them — a good and productive land, the best land of all.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “I will bring you out of Egypt and lead you to a land that I have chosen for you. It is a very fertile and very beautiful/more beautiful than any other land.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
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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.
On that day refers to the time when God chose the nation of Israel as his own.
I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt: God promised to rescue the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. For I swore, see the previous verse. In languages where the verb bring would mean to take them in the direction of the readers, translators may render this clause as “I promised I would lead them out of Egypt.”
Into a land that I had searched out for them: The Hebrew verb rendered searched out suggests that God had gone ahead of the Israelites to look for a country into which to take them. It is the same word that is translated “spy out” in Num 13–14 to describe the expedition of the spies into the Promised Land. Other ways of translating this clause are “into a land that I had found for them” (New Century Version), “to a land that I had chosen for them” (Good News Translation; similarly Contemporary English Version), or “into a land that I had selected for them” (New American Standard Bible).
A land flowing with milk and honey is an idealistic picture of “a rich and fertile land” (Good News Translation). This is figurative language and for many people a literal translation may be meaningless or absurd. If so, it is best to follow Good News Translation. Other possible models are “a land where food is found in abundance” and “a land where there is plenty of good food.”
The most glorious of all lands is literally “it [is] beauty to all the lands.” This phrase describes the land in terms that great patriots might use for their home country. It is a subjective expression of love for one’s homeland. God is referring to Canaan here. Other renderings for this phrase are “the loveliest [land] of them all” (New Jerusalem Bible), “the best land in the world” (New Century Version), and “the most beautiful of all lands” (New International Version). Models for this phrase and the previous one are “That land is the number one land. It is better than all the others. There is plenty of good food to eat there” and “a land that is the most beautiful of all the lands, where food is plentiful.”
Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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