God's anger, wrath of God

The Hebrew and Greek What is translated into English as “the wrath of God” (Good News Translation: “God’s anger”) has to be referred to in Bengali as judgment, punishment or whatever fits the context. In Bengali culture, anger is by definition bad and can never be predicated of God. (Source: David Clark)

In Kikuyu the whole phrase that is translated in English as “storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath” or similar is translated as “you are increasing for yourself God’s wrath.” (Source: Jan Sterk)

In Quetzaltepec Mixe it is translated with a term “that not only expresses anger, but also punishment” (source: Robert Bascom), in Western Bukidnon Manobo as “the coming punishment of God on mankind” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation), in Kankanaey as “God’s fearful/terrible future punishing of people” (source: Kankanaey Back Translation), in Tagbanwa as “the coming anger/hatred of God” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation), and in Tenango Otomi as “the punishment which will come” (source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation).

See also anger.

female second person singular pronoun in Psalms

In Garifuna the second person singular pronoun (“you” in English) has two forms. One is used in women’s speech and one in men’s speech. In the Garifuna Bible the form used in men’s speech is typically used, except when it’s clear that a woman is quoted or in Psalms where the women on the translation team insisted that the form used in women’s speech (buguya) would be used throughout the whole book.

Ronald Ross (in Omanson 2001, p. 375f.) tells the story: “Throughout most of the translation, [the distinctions between the different forms of the pronouns] presented no problem. Whenever the speaker in the text was perceived as a man, the male speech forms were used; and when a woman was speaking, the female speech forms were used. True, the women members of the translation team did object on occasion to the use of the male forms when the author (and narrator) of a book was unknown and the men translators had used the male speech forms as the default. Serious discord arose, however, during the translation of the Psalms because of their highly devotional nature and because throughout the book the psalmist is addressing God. The male translators had, predictably, used the male form to address God, and the male form to refer to the psalmist, even though women speakers of Garifuna never use those forms to address anyone. The women contended that they could not as women read the Psalms meaningfully if God and the psalmist were always addressed as if the readers were men. The men, of course, turned the argument around, claiming that neither could they read the Psalms comfortably if the reader was assumed to be a woman.

“Initially there seemed to be no way out of this impasse. However a solution was found in the ongoing evolution of the language. There is a strong propensity for male speech and female speech to merge in favor of the latter, so the few remaining male forms are gradually dying out. Moreover, male children learn female speech from their mothers and only shift to the male speech forms when they reach adolescence to avoid sounding effeminate. However they use the female form buguya when addressing their parents throughout life. So the women wielded two arguments: First, the general development of the language favored the increasing use of the female forms. Secondly, the female forms are less strange to the men than the male forms are to the women, because the men habitually use them during early childhood and continue to use them to address their parents even in adulthood. Therefore, the female pronominal forms prevailed and were adopted throughout the book of Psalms, though the male forms remained the default forms in the rest of the translation.”

See also female first person singular pronoun in Psalms and addressing God.

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 7:6

With this verse the psalmist begins a strophe (verses 6-9) in which he calls upon God, the Judge of all humankind, to judge him and declare him innocent of the charges against him.

With three verbs the psalmist calls upon Yahweh to act: Arise … lift thyself up … awake. These are ways of asking him to take action against the psalmist’s enemies and defeat them. The first two are quite close in meaning; see “Arise, O LORD” in 3.7. The third one, awake, does not necessarily imply that Yahweh is asleep, but only that he is inactive; so Good News Translation “rouse yourself,” New Jerusalem Bible “bestir Yourself.”

In line b the noun fury may be parallel to anger in line a, so that the line may mean “Stand up in fury against my enemies”; so An American Translation, New English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible footnote. Although the Hebrew word for fury is not the same as other words already used in Psalms, it is not significantly different. It appears in four other passages, referring always to God’s anger (78.49b; 85.3a; 90.9a, 11b); Revised Standard Version consistently translates “wrath.”

Fury of my enemies must often be recast, since fury will in some cases not function as the object of lift thyself up against, but only as a description of the enemies. In such cases it may be rendered “stand up against my furious enemies,” or figuratively, “protect me from my hot-hearted enemies.” The word for enemies is the same as in 6.7.

In line c Good News Translation “and help me” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “and be on my side”) translates the Masoretic text “for me” (as in the Revised Standard Version footnote). But if different vowels are used, the two consonants of the Hebrew word mean “my God”; so Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible (Septuagint has “O Lord my God”).6 Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (“B” decision) prefers “unto me,” meaning “in my favor.”

The last words of the verse in Hebrew have no obvious connection with what precedes; literally “you have decreed justice (or, judgment).” Both New English Bible and New Jerusalem Bible (which have “my God”) take it as a description of God, “you who demand that justice shall be done” (see also Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Bible en français courant); New Jerusalem Bible and Bible de Jérusalem are like Revised Standard Version; New American Bible is different, “wake to the judgment you have decreed” (which is none too clear). Moffatt has “Awake to aid us, to maintain the right”; Weiser, “Appoint a judgment.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project says the Hebrew may mean “you have (in fact) ordained judgment,” or “you who have ordained judgment” or “… ordain judgment.”

The word for “justice” (or, judgment) is mishpat (used in 1.5), a word which covers the widest area possible of conformity to rule, custom, command, right; it may be used in the abstract sense of justice, of what is right, fitting, proper, or in the concrete sense of an act of judgment, including the concept of the final Day of Judgment.

Since it is difficult or impossible in many languages to speak of “decreeing judgment,” it is often necessary recast this expression. Taking “justice” in the sense of conforming to rules, it is possible to say “God requires that people live right,” or in the sense of God’s judgment, “God will judge people” or “God has fixed a time to judge everyone.”

Good News Translation has joined the last words of this verse to the next verse; that this is the way the Hebrew text is to be understood is by no means certain.

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 .