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 58:8 - 58:9

The two similes in verse 8 are also reasonably clear, but it should be noted: (1) Snail translates a word found only here in the Old Testament; some take it to mean “beeswax,” and others “worm.” G. R. Driver takes the word to be synonymous with “abortion” in line b (see New English Bible “like an abortive birth which melts away”); most translate as do Good News Translation and Revised Standard Version. It seems that it was thought, from the trail of slime left by a snail, that the snail gradually dissolves, and finally there is nothing left but the empty snail shell. (2) The verb translated dissolves also occurs only here in the Old Testament, but its meaning is reasonably certain.

The simile in verse 8b is clear enough; see Job 3.16; Ecclesiastes 6.3 for the same figure. The untimely birth: a more normal way in English to say this would be either “a stillborn child” or “an aborted fetus.”

The difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of translating verse 9 can be demonstrated by the fact that Dahood does not provide a translation of it and confesses: “The Hebrew of this verse is unintelligible to me.” He rightly scores Revised Standard Version for not giving any indication of the impossibility of making sense of the Masoretic text. It would be of little practical use to list the many ways in which the text has been handled. No two translations agree completely, and all (including even New International Version) have textual footnotes. Whatever course a translator takes, a note should indicate that the Hebrew makes little sense. Notice how two translations in English have rendered the same Hebrew text: New Jerusalem Bible “Before the thorns grow into a bramble, may He whirl them away alive in fury”; New English Bible “All unawares, may they be rooted up like a thorn-bush, like weeds which a man angrily clears away!”; and one other suggested version, “Before their pots feel the heat of the thorns, whether green or dry, may God sweep them away.”8-9 Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (“A” decision) says the Masoretic text is difficult and can be interpreted in two ways: (1) “before your kettles were aware of the thorn, the stormwind wipes away, be it green or dry!”; (2) “before your thorns rise to a bush: while it is (still) green, the stormwind wipes it away (as if it were) dried!”

Good News Translation translates an emended text which mostly follows G. R. Driver’s reconstruction in “Studies in the Vocabulary of the O.T. V,” Journal of Theological Studies 34 (1933), page 44; see also Anderson.

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 .