The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).
Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).
In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Zephaniah 3:6:
Kupsabiny: “God is saying, ‘I have wiped away other communities and overturned their protected/fortified cities. Their roads are deserted/desolate with no one passing through. Their cities have become deserted so that no person lives there.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “‘I have destroyed all the nations. their strongholds are demolished. their streets deserted, no one passing the way. Their cities are totally destroyed then in their empty no one is left people.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “‘Now, the LORD says, ‘I have-destroyed the nations; I have-destroyed their cities as-well-as its stone-walls and towers. There (was) none left of their residents, so there (was) no man/person anymore who can-be-seen walking in their streets.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “Yahweh says this: ‘I have destroyed many nations; I have destroyed their strong/high city walls and towers. Now I have caused the streets in those cities to be completely deserted ; the cities are ruined. There are no people still alive in the cities; they are all dead.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
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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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.
From the beginning of verse 6 through to the end of verse 13, the speaker is the LORD. In the Hebrew the direct speech begins with no introduction, but Good News Translation avoids this abruptness by naming the speaker in the opening words, “The LORD says” (compare Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).
Verse 5 stated how the people of Jerusalem had failed to learn from the LORD’s faithfulness to them. Verses 6 and 7 develop this idea from a different point of view and state that they also failed to learn from the example of how the LORD punished other nations. Compare Amos 4.4-12.
I have cut off nations: for the use of cut off in Hebrew, see comments on 1.3. Revised Standard Version and New International Version give a literal translation, but New American Bible gives the meaning in plain language with “destroyed.” Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible and Good News Translation replace the Hebrew figure with an equivalent figure which is natural in English, and say “I have wiped out.” Translators who cannot use the Hebrew figure in their own language may do well to follow this example and look for an equivalent figure in their own language. In certain languages translators may express this phrase as “I have killed all the people of the nations” or “I have caused all the people of the nations to be killed.”
Nations refers to gentile peoples. New English Bible here follows the Septuagint in reading “the proud,” but there is no need to do this.
In the rest of the verse, the LORD’s words deal with two results of his action, the destruction of towns and the departure of their inhabitants. For the first result, Revised Standard Version gives as usual a literal translation: their battlements are in ruins; I have laid waste their streets. This puts specific statements about their battlements and their streets before the more general statement their cities have been made desolate. Good News Translation reorders the components of meaning to give the more general statement “I have destroyed their cities” before the more specific one “and left their walls and towers in ruins.” The words “walls and towers” explain in simple language the meaning of the more difficult term battlements. See comments on “lofty battlements” under 1.16.
Good News Translation adopts the same procedure in handling the second topic also, and thus puts the general statement “The cities are deserted” before the more detailed ones “the streets are empty—no one is left.” The last clause “no one is left” translates the two Hebrew phrases rendered in Revised Standard Version as without a man, without an inhabitant and avoids the repetition which is not natural in English. But in some languages repetition is unavoidable. “The cities are deserted” will be translated in these languages as “The cities are without people” or “There are no people living in the cities.” An alternative translation model for the latter part of the verse is “There are no people in the cities. No one walks in the streets. Everyone is gone.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on the Book of Zephaniah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1989. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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