complete verse (Ezekiel 27:30)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 27:30:

  • Kupsabiny: “Those people shall shout in much pain while crying over you. They shall pour dust on their heads and roll in ashes.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “and they will-cry loudly because of what happened to you. They will-sprinkle their heads with dust and they will-roll in the ashes to show their mourning.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)

2nd person pronoun with low register (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 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. )

See also first person pronoun with low register and third person pronoun with low register.

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 27:30

And wail aloud over you, and cry bitterly: When the sailors from the other ships see the fall of Tyre, they begin the usual mourning practices as though someone had died. Wail aloud over you is literally “make their voice heard over you,” which means “cry loudly about you” (New Century Version) in this context. Cry bitterly means “cry very much” (New Century Version), expressing deep sorrow and anguish. It is acceptable to combine these two lines; for example, Good News Translation has “They all mourn bitterly for you.” But again, retaining the parallelism is preferable, as in “They cry loudly because of you. They mourn bitterly [or, at length].”

The next two lines of this verse and the first two lines of the next one mention four items that were typical ancient mourning rites. They cast dust on their heads involves putting dust on one’s head as an expression of sorrow. This may have been done by throwing dust up into the air and letting it fall on one’s head.

And wallow in ashes means “rolling in ashes” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version) as another expression of sorrow. The more usual expression for this mourning rite is “sit in ashes” (see Job 2.8; Jonah 3.6), “lie in ashes” (see Est 4.3), or “put ashes on one’s head/body” (see 2 Sam 13.19; Est 4.1).

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 .