complete verse (Ezekiel 33:2)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 33:2:

  • Kupsabiny: “‘Ezekiel, tell your people: Suppose I send war to come to the country and people choose one of their people to watch far/be on the outlook.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘Man, say this to your fellowmen: When I will-cause-an-attack on a place by the enemies, the residents of that place choose one of their fellowmen to become one-who-watches their city.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “‘You human, speak to your fellow Israelis and say this to them: ‘When I bring an enemy army to attack a country, and the people of that country choose one of their men and appoint him to be a watchman,” (Source: Translation for Translators)

1st person pronoun referring to God (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 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.

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

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 33:2

For Son of man (International Children’s Bible “Human being”),

Speak to your people and say to them: New Living Translation says “give your people this message,” and Contemporary English Version has “warn your people by saying,” which includes an indication of the tone of the message. Your people refers to Ezekiel’s fellow Israelites, who are in exile with him.

If I bring the sword upon a land may be rendered “If I send an enemy to invade a country” (Contemporary English Version). Instead of “invade,” translators may use “attack” or “make war with.” Sword is an image for war (see the comments on 11.8). A land refers to any country, but not specifically Israel.

And the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman: The people of the land refers to the inhabitants of the unspecified country. They take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, that is, they “choose one of their men to stand guard” (New International Reader’s Version). For watchman see 3.17. Good News Translation has “lookout.”

The second half of this verse begins a long conditional sentence that continues to the end of verse 4. The sentence lists a number of actions, each of which is dependent on the previous one, thus: “If A happens, and then if B happens, and then if C happens, finally D will happen.” In those languages where such an extended conditional sentence is unnatural, translators may need to break up the sentence into shorter sentences, as Good News Translation has done. Contemporary English Version does this by rendering the last half of this verse as “Someday, I, the LORD, may send an enemy to invade a country. And suppose its people choose someone to stand watch.”

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 .