swear, vow

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “swear (an oath)” or “vow” is translated as “God sees me, I tell the truth to you” (Tzeltal), “loading yourself down” (Huichol), “to speak-stay” (implying permanence of the utterance) (Sayula Popoluca), “to say what he could not take away” (San Blas Kuna), “because of the tight (i.e. “binding”) word which he had said to her face” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “strong promise” (North Alaskan Inupiatun) (source for all above: Bratcher / Nida), “eat an oath” (Nyamwezi — source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext), or sswa nak/”drink an oath” (Jju — source: McKinney 2018, p. 31).

In Bauzi “swear” can be translated in various ways. In Hebrews 6:13, for instance, it is translated with “bones break apart and decisively speak.” (“No bones are literally broken but by saying ‘break bones’ it is like people swear by someone else in this case it is in relation to a rotting corpse’ bones falling apart. If you ‘break bones’ so to speak when you make an utterance, it is a true utterance.”) In other passages, such as in Matthew 26:72, it’s translated with an expression that implies taking ashes (“if a person wants everyone to know that he is telling the truth about a matter, he reaches down into the fireplace, scoops up some ashes and throws them while saying ‘I was not the one who did that.'”). So in Matthew 26:72 the Bauzi text is: “. . . Peter took ashes and defended himself saying, ‘I don’t know that Nazareth person.'” (Source: David Briley)

See also swear (promise) and Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’, or ‘No, No’.

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 7:9

In Hebrew verses 9-10 are a single sentence, which is carried over into English by Revised Standard Version. The result is a highly complex and difficult construction, containing a question with an embedded statement followed by direct discourse. Since the Hebrew question expects an affirmative answer, it is possible to shift away from a question form to that of a statement, as with Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and New English Bible. Moreover, it is probably best in most languages to divide these verses into several separate sentences, as Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch have done.

In some languages the verb steal must have an object of some kind, as in “You steal things [from others].”

In this verse commit adultery is meant literally, not as a metaphor for being unfaithful to God.

For swear falsely, see 5.2. The idea is to swear an oath insincerely or dishonestly. Revised English Bible uses “perjury,” and Good News Translation has “tell lies under oath.” If neither of these expressions can be used, translators can say “call on God’s name to declare something true when it is false.”

Burn incense may also mean “offer sacrifices” (see 1.16). Translators could also have “you burn incense on altars for Baal.”

For Baal see 2.8.

Go after other gods: See verse 6.

That you have not known means “that you know nothing about” or “that you have had no experience with.” Jeremiah is affirming that the foreign gods are not to be relied on, because Israel has never before had any occasion in which to prove these gods. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “… which are no concern of yours.”

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 .