complete verse (Jeremiah 30:13)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 30:13:

  • Kupsabiny: “There is no one to speak your case,
    nor a medicine for your wounds
    and you are not treatable.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “The LORD still said to his people: ‘Your wounds will- no-longer -be-healed for this is now very serious. There is none who can help or heal you (plur.). There is none medicine for you (plur.).” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “There is no one to help you,
    no one to put a bandage on your wound.
    There is no medicine that will heal you.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 30:13

Because of the mixed metaphor found in this verse (a court scene and a medical drama), a number of scholars believe that the first line (There is none to uphold your cause) was introduced later into the text. This is the reason for its omission in Revised English Bible and Bright. However, since there is no textual evidence for the omission of this line, it should be maintained in the text. Good News Translation (so also Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) interprets the line in a more general sense, which suits the context well: “There is no one to take care of you.” New Jerusalem Bible is similar to Revised Standard Version: “There is no one to plead your cause.” With a note indicating that the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh renders “No one pleads for the healing of your sickness.”

Bible en français courant expresses this verse as:

• No one takes care of your case.
Normally one heals wounds,
but for you there is no remedy.

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 .