15Then he came to the people of Succoth and said, “Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, ‘Do you already have in your possession the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna, that we should give bread to your troops who are exhausted?’ ”
In many, if not most of the languages in the Philippines, proper nouns, such as personal names, are tagged with a marker that signals their grammatical role within a sentence. For Tagalog and the Visayan languages , this typically includes si to mark the proper noun as the actor or subject (nominative case), ni to mark the proper noun as an owner (genitive case), and kay to mark the proper noun as as an indirect object, i.e. the one to or toward whom an action is directed (dative case). All of these also have plural forms — sina, nina and kina respectively — and unlike in the biblical languages or in English, the plural form has to be used when only a single proper name is mentioned but implicitly that proper name includes more than just one.
In this verse, where English translates “he (came),” the Tagalog translation translates “nina Gideon” because the context of the text makes clear that Gideon came with his troops. (Source: Kermit Titrud and Steve Quakenbush)
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, the Jarai translation uses the exclusive pronoun, excluding Gideon.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Judges 8:15:
Kupsabiny: “After that, Gideon went to the people of Succoth and said to them, ‘You remember when you insulted me saying, ‘Why should we give your people who are tired bread, when you have not caught Zebah and Zalmunna?’ Is this not Zebah and Zalmunna?’” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “Then Gideon, coming to the men of Succoth spoke like this — "Look, Zebah and Zalmunna concerning whom [lit. them] you ridiculed me saying "What! Have Zebah and Zalmunna already fallen into your hands? if that Why should we give bread to your tired men?’"” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “Afterwards Gideon and company went to those (who) come-from-Sucot and told (them), ‘Do- you (plur.) -remember your (plur.) insulting of me? You (plur.)said, ‘You (plur.) have- not indeed -caught Zeba and Zalmuna. Why should- we (excl.) -give food to your (plur.) tired/weary and hungry men?’ Now, here now are Zeba and Zalmuna!’” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “Then Gideon and his men returned to Succoth and said to those leaders, ‘Here are Zebah and Zalmunna. When we were here before, you made fun of me and said ‘You have not caught Zebah and Zalmunna yet! After you catch them, we will give your exhausted men some food.’ ’” (Source: Translation for Translators)
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 second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used anata (あなた) is typically used when the speaker is humbly addressing another person.
In these verses, however, omae (おまえ) is used, a cruder second person pronoun, that Jesus for instance chooses when chiding his disciples. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
This verse is obviously a high point in the story, and the narrator marks it by the word Behold (Hebrew hinneh), along with a play on words using the key term hand.
And he came to the men of Succoth, and said: Armed with the list of names, Gideon returned to Succoth. The Hebrew waw conjunction rendered And may be translated “So” (New American Bible) or “Then” (Good News Translation). Came is a literal rendering, but many languages will prefer “went” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version). The men of Succoth may refer to all the town’s inhabitants (so Revised English Bible with “the people of Succoth”), but more likely it refers to its leaders (so Contemporary English Version with “the town officials”). This whole sentence may be rendered “So Gideon went to the leaders of Succoth, and said to them.”
Behold, Zebah and Zalmunna: The Hebrew word hinneh rendered Behold marks the high point or climax of this episode. It also serves as a kind of demonstrative to introduce the two Midianite kings, so Contemporary English Version renders this clause as “Here are Zebah and Zalmunna.” This is what the town leaders had demanded earlier (verse 8.6), hardly expecting Gideon to be able to capture them. Good News Translation says “Well, here they are!” which is quite dynamic. We may also say “Take a look at this!” or “Here, see for yourselves!”
About whom you taunted me is a relative clause that describes the two kings. The leaders of Succoth made fun of Gideon when he asked for food for his troops. They mockingly said they wanted Gideon to capture the kings before they granted his request. The Hebrew verb for taunted may be rendered “mocked” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). This relative clause may be translated as an independent one by saying “These are the two you mocked me about” or “You laughed at me earlier because of these two!” A more dynamic model is “You didn’t think I could catch these two, did you?”
Saying introduces what the leaders of Succoth said to Gideon as they taunted him.
Are Zebah and Zalmunna already in your hand, that we should give bread to your men who are faint?: This is a quote of what Succoth’s leaders said earlier to Gideon (see verse 8.6). In many cultures this repetition is an important part of storytelling style and underlines the fact that the leaders were wrong to make this statement. In such languages the exact words from 8.6 should appear, which will probably mean using a quote within a quote. Translators should follow standard punctuation agreed upon by the translation team and the community. A possible model that keeps both levels of quotation is “Here they are, the two people you taunted me about! You said, ‘Where are Zebah and Zalmunna? Show them to us before we give food to your men who are so exhausted!’ ” If the embedded quote is too complicated or unnatural, then translators will have to use indirect speech, for example, “You wanted me to prove that I already had captured Zebah and Zalmunna before you would give food to my men who were exhausted.”
Translation models for this verse are:
• So Gideon returned to the town of Succoth and told the leaders, “Here are Zebah and Zalmunna! Do you remember them? You made fun of me and asked if I had already captured them. You refused to give food to my troops dropping from exhaustion.”
• Then Gideon went to the leaders of Succoth and said to them, “You mocked me by saying, ‘Have you already defeated Zebah and Zalmunna? Why should we give food to your tired army?’ Well, look, here they are!”
Quoted with permission from Zogbo, Lynell and Ogden, Graham S. A Handbook on Judges. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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