Honorary "are" construct denoting God (“say”)

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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 are (され) 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, iw-are-ru (言われる) or “say” is used.

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

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 14:14

Prophesying lies (see “prophesy falsely” in 5.31) is the rendering of a number of translations (Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New International Version); Good News Translation has “telling lies.” For the first sentence of the LORD’s quote, translators can also say “The prophets say they are speaking on my behalf, but they are telling lies.”

In some languages send them will require an indirect object, as in “I did not send them to you” or “I did not send them to speak for me.”

Similarly, command may require some kind of object, as in Good News Translation “nor did I give them any orders.”

Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates the three verbs send … command … speak as two: “I did not send them, I spoke no word to them!”

A lying vision (“false visions” in New International Version, Revised English Bible) refers to visions that prophets claim to have had from the LORD, but in fact did not originate with him. But it is quite possible that the word vision may be used in a more general sense of “message” or “revelation” from the LORD. The vision was a legitimate and conventional method of receiving God’s word, but the prophets are claiming to have a message when in fact they do not. Elsewhere in Jeremiah the noun is used in 23.16. Some translators will have to translate They are prophesying to you a lying vision with a sentence such as “They say they are speaking a message they received from me in a vision, but that is not true.”

Divination is used only here in the book of Jeremiah. Basically it had to do with the use of physical objects (natural or man-made) as a means of predicting the future. Thus Good News Translation translates worthless divination as “their predictions are worthless things.” If divination is known in a culture, then worthless divination could be expressed in a clause such as “the divination they practice is of no value.” Translators could also say something like “the ways they try to tell the future are worthless.”

The verse concludes by saying the visions and divination are the deceit of their own minds, which means “things they have created in their own imaginations.”

For the last sentence Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “They have invented their own prophesies and visions and have presented them for my word.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .