At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: This clause begins in Hebrew with the words At Gibeon, and it ends with a single Hebrew noun, which is literally “the night.” Since Good News Translation and Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje have already indicated in verse 4 that a specific trip to Gibeon is being discussed, they make the time relationship explicit by saying “That night.” The Hebrew, however, does not indicate how long Solomon was at Gibeon nor whether God appeared in a dream the first night or some other night during this particular visit. For this reason the rendering “While Solomon was at Gibeon, the Lord God appeared to him during the night…” (Bible en français courant) is preferable since it does not specify which night (similarly Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente). Since dreaming is common to all cultures, translators should have no problem conveying the idea of seeing someone or something in a dream.

In Hebrew the first half of the verse has YHWH (“Yahweh”), the proper name of God which is traditionally rendered LORD, and the second half of the verse has the noun God (see the discussion on “Translating Lord and LORD” in “Translating 1–2 Kings,” pages 11-12). For reasons of style Good News Translation omits the noun God and makes “the LORD” the subject of the verb “asked.” If both terms are used, it should be quite clear to the reader that the same being is intended.

Ask what I shall give you: While a more or less literal translation of this direct quotation will be perfectly acceptable in many languages, others may render it as indirect discourse; for example, “invited him to choose whatever gift he wanted to be given” or “telling him that he could ask for anything he wanted.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .