complete verse (Job 32:14)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 32:14:

  • Kupsabiny: “Job spoke to you and not to me,
    if it had been me I would not have answered like you.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “But Job has not spoken against me.
    I will not answer him like you [have].” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “If I am the one- that Job -argues-with, I will- not -answer him like what you (plur.) answered.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)

Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.

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 formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).

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

Translation commentary on Job 32:14

He has not directed his words against me: He refers to Job, who has not directed …, an expression meaning “to marshal” or “to line up in rows.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project suggests “And he has not lined up (his arguments) against me.” Good News Translation “Job was speaking to you, not to me” gives the sense but loses the feeling of the original. We can translate “Job was not aiming his arguments at me” or “I was not the target of Job’s words.”

And I will not answer him with your speeches: Elihu is saying that he will not reply to Job with the poor arguments of the friends, or as Good News Translation says, “but I would never answer the way you did.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .