And the Lord will give us strength …: Both Good News Translation and Revised Standard Version render the verbs in this verse (give, give, live, serve, find) as simple futures, as they are in the Greek text, but each clause is in effect a result clause. Everything seen as happening in verse 12 follows from God’s answering the prayer of verse 11. Good News Translation indicates this with an introductory “Then,” but the force of this applies to the whole verse, and not simply to the first sentence.
The Lord … will give light to our eyes can be taken in any of several ways. Good News Translation “the Lord will … be our guide” is a limited interpretation; it means that, at least. Moore adds another element with “the Lord will … sharpen our vision.” New English Bible “the Lord will give us … light to walk by” shifts the focus but has the same idea in mind as Good News Translation. Much the same idiom is used at Psa 19.8b, where it is said that “the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.” Good News Translation takes that to mean “The commands of the LORD are just and give understanding to the mind.” In Psa 13.3 the clause “lighten my eyes” obviously means “keep me alive.” Any of these meanings would be satisfactory in this context. We could say “The Lord will give us strength and vision,” “The Lord will give us strength and understanding,” or “The Lord will give us strength and preserve our lives.” But perhaps the more general interpretation suggested by Good News Translation is the wisest. Notice that the translator here has the option of expressing the Lord’s gift by two nouns (“the Lord will give us strength and guidance”), by one or two verbs (“the Lord will strengthen us / help us”), or by a combination (Good News Translation “the Lord will strengthen us and be our guide”). Of course, in some languages other ways of translating these two clauses will be found.
We shall live under the protection of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and under the protection of Belshazzar his son: Under the protection is literally “in the shadow” (Revised Standard Version footnote). If this idiom is expressed literally in English, it has a quite different, and unfavorable, meaning. People in northern countries might well think of being in the shadow of someone or something a bad thing, cutting them off from the warmth of the sun. But in Israel, shade offers welcome protection from a hot, punishing sun. Protection is then the obvious meaning of the metaphor (compare Psa 17.8; 36.7; Isa 51.16). In languages that do not have the passive voice, translators may say, for example, “King Nebuchadnezzar and his son King Belshazzar will protect us.”
We shall serve them many days: “We will be loyal to them as long as we live” (Good News Translation) conveys the wrong impression. A better rendering here is “we will remain subject to them” or “we will remain their subjects.” The exiled Jews are not pledging loyalty to the Babylonian leaders for the rest of their lives. They simply know that they are going to be their subjects for a long time, and they may as well try to get along. They are likely to be better off (find favor in their sight) if they don’t cause any trouble. What they recommend here is no different than what Jeremiah urged in his letter to the exiles in Jer 29.
Find favor in their sight: Good News Translation has “they will be pleased with us” (similarly Contemporary English Version).
Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.