Translation commentary on Joshua 9:9 - 9:10

The Gibeonites reply that it was because of all that they had heard about the Lord, the God of the Israelites, that they had come on a peace mission (see also verse 24). Because we have heard of the LORD your God is literally “because of the name of the LORD your God.” In such a context “name” would refer to the reputation of the Lord, and so it is possible to translate “because of the fame of the LORD your God.” Since “fame” is abstract, it may even be better to shift to a verb formation: “because we have heard of the great things that the LORD your God has done.”

As they tell what they have heard, they mention only what the Lord has done in Egypt, when he freed Israel from bondage, and what he has done to King Sihon of Heshbon (see Num 21.21-32) and to King Og of Bashan (see Num 21.33-35), whose territories were on the east side of the Jordan River. Heshbon was the capital city of Sihon’s kingdom (see Num 21.27), and Ashtaroth was the capital city of Og’s kingdom. Both can be located with a fairly high degree of certainty. The Gibeonites do not refer to the Israelite victories at Jericho and Ai, since a knowledge of these recent campaigns would be inconsistent with their claim that they lived far away from Canaan.

Verse 10 may also need to begin with a new sentence: “We also heard what he did to … Jordan. We heard how he defeated King Sihon….”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Newman, Barclay M. A Handbook on Joshua. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

humble form of "come" (mairu)

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 to do this is through the usage of lexical honorific forms, i.e., completely different words, as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, mairu (参る), a humble form of kuru (来る) or “come” is used.

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

See also respectful form of “come” (omie ni naru), respectful form of “come” (oide ni naru), and come (Japanese honorifics).