desert, wilderness

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The Greek that is translated as “desert” or “wilderness” in English is translated in a number of ways:

Note that in Luke 15:4, usually a term is used that denotes pastoral land, such as “eating/grazing-place” in Tagbanwa (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation).

See also wilderness and desolate wilderness.

wild animal

The Hebrew, Latin and Greek that is translated in English as “wild animal” or similar is translated in Newari as “animal that lives in the jungle.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)

birds of the air

The Greek and Hebrew phrases that are often translated as “birds of the air” in English “refer to the undomesticated song birds or wild birds, to be distinguished in a number of languages from domesticated fowl. In Tzeltal these former are ‘field birds’.” (source: Bratcher / Nida)

Q’anjob’al also uses an established term for non-domesticated birds. Newberry and Kittie Cox (in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 91ff. ) explain: “Qʼanjobʼal has two distinct terms, one to identify domesticated birds and the other non-domesticated birds. The additional descriptive phrase ‘of the air’ seemed entirely misleading, for Qʼanjobʼal speakers had never heard of such creatures. Actually, of course, all that was necessary was the term for non-domesticated birds, for that is precisely the meaning of the Biblical expression.”

See also birds of the air / fish of the sea and birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 9:10

Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has a section heading here: “Dirge over Judah and Jerusalem.” Translators who wish to do something similar can have “Lament over Judah and Jerusalem” or “The LORD sings a lament over Judah and Jerusalem.”

As Revised Standard Version indicates, Take up actually translates the Septuagint. The Hebrew has “I will take up,” which is preferred by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project.

Weeping translates the same word first used in 3.21.

Wailing is also used in verses 18-20, as well as in 31.15. In 9.20 and 31.15 Revised Standard Version renders it “lament/lamentation.” Elsewhere in the Old Testament it is found only in Amos 5.16 and Micah 2.4. In the present context weeping and wailing are apparently used with the same meaning, as seems also to be the case with lamentation, which appears again in 9.20 as “dirge” in Revised Standard Version. Its first occurrence in Jeremiah is in 7.29. Both Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translate Take up weeping and wailing by a single verb: “I will mourn for.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates lamentation as “the cry of mourning for the dead,” which is accompanied by a note in the word list. This is a very suitable translation, inasmuch as Jeremiah pictures the land as though it were a dead person that people should mourn for.

Pastures of the wilderness is a set phrase referring to the pastures in the highlands. It is translated “desert pastures” by New Jerusalem Bible and New English Bible. New American Bible has “pasture lands” and Good News Translation “pastures.” If there is no word for pastures in a language, translators can say something like “fields where the animals graze.”

Laid waste is more literally “burned up” (New American Bible; Revised English Bible “scorched”). New Jerusalem Bible translates “they have been burnt,” which is also the meaning represented by Traduction œcuménique de la Bible and La Bible Pléiade. See verse 12. If the language requires that an agent must be indicated, translators can say “they have burned them up.”

No one passes through: See 2.6.

The passive construction the lowing of cattle is not heard may in some languages be better rendered as an active: “No one can hear cattle lowing there” or “There are no cattle lowing there.” Lowing is the sound of cattle calling. Translators may need to say “cattle calling to each other.”

The ruination of the land is so bad that domesticated animals (cattle) and wild animals (birds … beasts) have forsaken it and gone. Birds of the air is a typical Hebrew expression meaning simply “birds” (see 4.25; 7.33).

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 .