complete verse (Jeremiah 14:17)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 14:17:

  • Kupsabiny: “Go and tell those people that,
    ‘Tears are flowing from my eyes day and night
    without rest/stopping,
    because my people are seriously wounded,
    and they have gotten a big fall/stumbling.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘Jeremias, say this to the people: ‘Day and night there is no stopping of my crying for the wound of my people is serious I consider as my virgin child/daughter, and I was very afflicted.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “So, Jeremiah, tell this to them about yourself:
    ‘Day and night my eyes are full of tears.
    I cannot stop crying.
    I cry for my people,
    who are very precious to me, as if they were my daughters.
    I cry for them because they have been severely wounded;
    they have been severely crushed.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 14:17

You shall say to them this word: Good News Translation identifies the speaker with “The LORD commanded,” and defines the nature of the word with “to tell the people about my sorrow”; that is, Jeremiah is to tell the people about his own sorrow on their behalf. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch is similar, saying, “Again the Lord said to me: ‘Let them know how perplexed you are! Tell them: “….” ’ ”

Let my eyes … not cease is rendered as a statement in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch: “I cry day and night and cannot stop.” Translators who prefer to still express this as a wish may say something like “I wish my eyes would be full of tears day and night, and that my crying would never stop.”

Night and day is the Hebrew idiom; other languages may prefer “day and night” (Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).

The virgin daughter of my people is a term of endearment meaning “my people” (Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). For similar constructions, see 18.13; 31.4, 21; 46.11. Some translators retain the image with “my people that I love like a daughter” or “… precious to me like a daughter.”

Is smitten with a great wound: Smitten is more literally “broken” (see 2.13, 20). Wound (more literally “breaking” or “fracture”) is derived from the same Hebrew root as the verb smitten. It is first used in 4.6 (Revised Standard Version “destruction”). For the last two lines translators may say “For my beloved people have suffered a great wound. They are grievously injured.”

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 .