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’.

inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (Josh. 9:20)

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, both the Jarai translation and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation use the inclusive pronoun (including the leaders and the congregation).

Translation commentary on Joshua 9:19 - 9:20

We (also us) of this and the following two verses must be translated as an inclusive first personal pronoun, in those languages that make a distinction between inclusive and exclusive forms. The leaders are saying that no one in Israel is allowed to harm these people. Although the Hebrew text has “touch” (Revised Standard Version), it is used in the sense of bringing harm to the persons touched, and so the basis for Good News Translation.

God will punish us translates the Hebrew “anger will be upon us” (see Revised Standard Version), a reference to God’s anger.

It is possible to place verses 19-20 together and so translate “19-20 But they answered, ‘We have promised them freedom in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. Therefore we must let them live. Otherwise the LORD will punish us severely.’ ”

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 .