神のみ我を裁く kami nomi ware o sabaku Only God Can Judge Me
神のみ我を裁く (kami nomi ware o sabaku), God alone judges me, is a Japanese rendering of Only God Can Judge Me, the title of a 2Pac track of 1996, and none of the public-domain books the National Diet Library's full-text search reaches carries it.
Abstract
神のみ我を裁く, kami nomi ware o sabaku, God alone judges me, is a Japanese rendering of an English sentence, Only God Can Judge Me, the title of a track on 2Pac's album All Eyez on Me, released in February 1996. None of the public-domain books the National Diet Library's full-text search reaches prints it. Its pieces are there, 神のみが, God alone, from Uchimura Kanzō in 1893, and 我を裁く, judges me, in a history of the Kirishitan mission of 1930, and its literary 我 and のみ set it in the register of an inscription rather than of speech.
Overview
The sense. God alone judges me: a statement, in the literary register, of whose judgment counts.
The words. 神 kami, God, the word the Japanese New Testament of 1881 uses for the God of the Bible [1]. のみ nomi, only. 我 ware, I, me, the literary pronoun. 裁く sabaku, 理非を明らかにする。裁判する, to decide right from wrong, to try [2]. The sentence word for word: God alone judges me. It is brushed as 神のみ我を裁く [3].
The text in English. The English is the original, Only God Can Judge Me, and the Japanese is the translation [4]. The Japanese keeps only God and me and turns can judge into the plain verb, 裁く, judges; the potential, can judge, would be 裁ける.
The historical record
1893 and 1930, the pieces. The full-text search finds 神のみが, God alone, in 908 books [5], the oldest of them two books of Uchimura Kanzō's of 1893; in 基督信徒の慰 he writes 時計師のみが悉く時計の構造を知る、神のみが悉く汝の躰を知る, only the watchmaker knows all the works of a watch; God alone knows all of your body [6]. It finds 我を裁く, judges me, in eight books, none of them this sentence [7]; the nearest is a Jesuit superior's retort in 姉崎正治's history of the Kirishitan mission, 汝等は我を裁く權能なし, you have no authority to judge me [8]. The whole sentence is in none [9].
1996, a record. Only God Can Judge Me is the title of a track on 2Pac's All Eyez on Me, released on 13 February 1996 [4]. Two verses of the King James Bible say something like it: 1 Corinthians 4:3–4, he that judgeth me is the Lord [10], and James 4:12, who art thou that judgest another? [11]. The Japanese for it, with the literary 我 and のみ, is the house's own rendering.
What is not a source. The two verses are neighbors in sense, not sources: neither is the sentence, and the sentence does not quote them. Whether the English sentence is older than the 1996 track was not searched.
A reading
神のみ我を裁く is a rendering, honest about being one, of an English sentence that came to Japanese by way of a rap record, and no book the full-text search reaches wrote it before. Its literary 我 and のみ give it the weight of an inscription, and its plain 裁く says a little more than the English: not who may judge me, but who does.
References
- 『新約全書』, 米国聖書会社, 1881, 馬可傳第十一章, printed p. 129, scan 67. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992682/1/67
- 「裁く」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/裁く-511619
- The design as brushed by Eri Takase, Takase Studios (not yet published).
- "All Eyez on Me", English Wikipedia (the album: released 13 February 1996; the track list). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Eyez_on_Me
- National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 神のみが, searched again 26 September 2026: 908 books, dated 1893 to 1966. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=神のみが
- 内村鑑三, 基督信徒の慰, 1893, scan 62. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824356/1/62
- National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 我を裁く, searched again 26 September 2026: 8 books, dated 1916 to 1943. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=我を裁く
- 姉崎正治, 切支丹伝道の興廃, 1930, scan 209. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1918428/1/209
- National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 神のみ我を裁く, searched again 26 September 2026: 0 books. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=神のみ我を裁く
- Bible (King James), 1 Corinthians 4:3–4, at en.wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/1_Corinthians
- Bible (King James), James 4:12, at en.wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/James