addressing God

Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed. The first example is from a language where God is always addressed distinctly formal whereas the second is one where the opposite choice was made.

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Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.

As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff.), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.

In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.

Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”

In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.

Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking (source Philip Noss).

In Dutch and Western Frisian translations, however, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.

See also female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.

Translation commentary on Psalm 18:25 - 18:26

The translator should note that there is a shift in pronominal use starting with verse 25. Until this point all references to God have been in the third person; now, however, the second person will be used in the following five verses (25-29), except in the second line of verses 28-29. Furthermore, there is at the same time a clear shift in the type of parallelism starting with verse 25, a discourse marker made of static parallelism. That is, the two lines of verses 25-26 say very much the same thing, with no “going beyond” in the second line. The poet will again revert to third-person reference to God in another five verses (30-34).

In verses 25-27 the psalmist no longer speaks in personal terms, as in verses 20-24, but speaks in general terms of the LORD’s attitude toward the good and the wicked.

In verses 25-26 the psalmist attributes the same qualities to God as are found in people. The thought is that God matches the good qualities (verses 25a, 25b, 26a) and the bad quality (verse 26b) he finds in people.

The first quality (verse 25a) is loyalty, faithfulness (see 5.7). On the part of God it means that he keeps his promises; on the part of human beings it means they faithfully obey God. Loyal and “faithful,” being terms which contain a reciprocal relationship, must often be recast to make explicit the relationship involved; for example, “With people who trust in you, you are a one-heart LORD,” “With people who follow you, you are a LORD of one way,” “You can be counted on to help those who always obey you,” or “You sustain people who rest on you.” In many languages the same word cannot be used naturally of God and of human beings, so the translation must carefully distinguish between God’s “faithfulness,” that is, his constant love, and a person’s “faithfulness,” that is, obedience to God.

The second quality (verse 25b) is perfection, lack of fault, or blameless (see also verse 23). It is difficult to find one word which can be used in the same sense of God and of a person; that is why Good News Translation has “completely good … perfect.”

The third quality (verse 26a) is purity, which is practically synonymous with blameless in the preceding line (New English Bible, however, takes the Hebrew verb here to means “be savage,” and not “be pure”). Thou dost show thyself pure in reference to God and people is often difficult to express by the same term. In reference to people the focus is upon their blameless condition, but when speaking of God the meaning is more related to the goodness, that is, the kindness, of God. This may sometimes be rendered, for example, “you are good to those whose hearts are white” or “you are kind in regard to those who have shining hearts.”

The last quality (verse 26b) is expressed in two different words: for people it is the word crooked; for God it is a verb meaning “to be wise, astute, cunning” (see Job 5.13b “cunning men”). This half-verse is translated in different ways: one possibility is “you outwit the cheat”; New Jerusalem Bible “with the perverse, you are wily”; New American Bible “toward the crooked you are astute”; New Jerusalem Bible “cunning to the crafty.” Perhaps “you are cunning (or, shrewd) with those who are crooked” is the best way to represent the meaning.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .