shepherd

The Greek and Hebrew that is translated as “shepherd” in English is translated in Kouya as Bhlabhlɛɛ ‘yliyɔzʋnyɔ — ” tender of sheep.”

Philip Saunders (p. 231) explains:

“Then one day they tackled the thorny problem of ‘shepherd’. It was problematic because Kouyas don’t have herdsmen who stay with the sheep all the time. Sheep wander freely round the village and its outskirts, and often a young lad will be detailed to drive sheep to another feeding spot. So the usual Kouya expression meant a ‘driver of sheep’, which would miss the idea of a ‘nurturing’ shepherd. ‘A sheep nurturer’ was possible to say, but it was unnatural in most contexts. The group came up with Bhlabhlɛɛ ‘yliyɔzʋnyɔ which meant ‘a tender of sheep’, that is one who keeps an eye on the sheep to make sure they are all right. All, including the translators, agreed that this was a most satisfactory solution.”

In Chuj, the translation is “carer” since there was no single word for “shepherd” (source: Ronald Ross), in Muna, it is dhagano dhumba: “sheep guard” since there was no immediate lexical equivalent (source: René van den Berg), in Mairasi it is translated with “people who took care of domesticated animals” (source: Enggavoter 2004), in Noongar as kookendjeriyang-yakina or “sheep worker” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang), and Kwakum as “those-who-monitor-the-livestock” (source: Stacey Hare in this post ).

See also I am the good shepherd.

Translation commentary on Zephaniah 2:6

And you, O seacoast, shall be pastures: the Philistine cities will be so completely destroyed that animals will graze on their sites. In English it sounds odd to address the seacoast directly, and so Good News Translation restructures in order to continue addressing the Philistines who lived there. This gives the more natural sentence “Your land by the sea will become open fields.” This can also be rendered “… will become bush (or, forest)” or “… will become land where sheep graze.”

Meadows for shepherds and folds for flocks: the word translated meadows is of uncertain meaning. These fields or meadows are of course places with abundant grass rather than plowed fields for growing crops. New English Bible and Good News Translation translate meadows as “huts.” The Septuagint translator apparently read this word at an earlier point in the sentence, instead of seacoast, and understood it as a proper name, Crete. This tradition is followed by New American Bible and New English Bible. The overall meaning of the verse is much the same either way. Folds or “sheep pens” (Good News Translation) are the enclosed areas where sheep can be kept safe at night.

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 .