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 19:10 - 19:11

They (verse 10) and them (twice in verse 11) refer back to “the ordinances” (Good News Translation “The judgments”) of verse 9b. In translation it is often necessary to reintroduce the subject of line a; for example, “The judgments of the LORD are worth more than gold.”

In verse 10 gold and fine gold refer to the same kind of substance, as do honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Good News Translation has combined the terms and used superlative forms: “finest gold … purest honey.” Fine gold in line b is a more specific instance of the general category of gold in line a. In the same way drippings of the honeycomb in line d is the more visual sense of honey in line c. In this verse Good News Translation makes no attempt to keep the double parallelism. The translator, however, should consider how the psalmist is creating a focusing movement between the lines through the use of increasingly picturable images. The translator’s task is to use the devices available in the receptor language to accomplish the same effect. The honeycomb is the structure built out of beeswax by bees, to hold their eggs and the honey. The same comparisons are used in 119.72, 103. Finest gold must often be expressed as “gold without any sand.” “The purest honey” must sometimes be said “honey without anything added.”

Moreover translates a Hebrew word often used to associate two items, or else to emphasize an additional item, as here. It appears also at the beginning of verse 13 (where Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation translate it “also”). Here something like “In addition” or “They also…” will express the idea.

In verse 11a the verb is usually translated is … warned or “… instructed.” Dahood and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, however, take the verb in another sense (as in Dan 12.3): “to be enlightened.” New Jerusalem Bible has “your servant pays them heed.” Verse 11a must sometimes be rendered “Your judgments instruct me.”

It is debated whether thy servant is generic, meaning anyone who obeys Yahweh, or specific, referring to the psalmist (so Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy), as it clearly does in verse 13. It seems better to understand it as specific. The expression thy servant should not refer to a domestic employee, or a slave, or one of the many kinds of workers who are bound to an owner through indebtedness. In this verse the psalmist calls himself a servant because of his obedience and faithful devotion to God. If the receptor-language term for servant has unwanted connotations, it will be best to recast this verse. The sense is made even more difficult for some languages by the psalmist referring to himself in the third person. For example, one may translate “I follow you faithfully, and your judgments teach me” or “Your way of judging people teaches me, and I obey what you say.”

The reward is primarily spiritual, but it includes the material. Verse 11b may often be expressed “I receive good things when I obey them.”

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 .